Archive of Our Own

Yoongi’s leg began to bounce. He could feel it, wiggling away in the footwell, but he couldn’t stop it.

The lights from outside strobed across his lap. It was oddly comforting, in a way – they were a reminder that there was a world outside this car, taking his attention constantly away from his worries.

“We’re nearly there.” The voice of the driver of the car, coming from in front of him, pulled him out of his thoughts.

He swallowed. He didn’t have anything to say to that – not when he didn’t even know whether he could say with certainty that he was excited to get to the dorm.

By the time the car rolled to a stop, Yoongi was a big bundle of nerves. Still, even as the door was opened for him, he put on his persistent scowl, and stepped outside without even a look at the driver.

Thankfully, the guy didn’t seem to think too much into it. “Here’s your keys,” he said. “Go in that door with this key, up a flight of stairs, and in the door on your left.”

“Okay,” Yoongi replied, trying to get all that in his head while also not seeming like he was putting too much effort into it. “Will anyone else be in there?”

The beta shrugged. “I dunno.”

Before Yoongi could try to ask him for clarification, he turned away and got back into the car.

Yoongi turned to the building in front of him. He had known that the company wouldn’t be able to provide them with the best dorms – it had been made very clear to him right from the first meeting – but he hadn’t anticipated it being this bad. Maybe it was the dark. Maybe it was the weather they’d had recently. Or maybe it was just his own nerves, making it look better than it was.

He didn’t think his parents would have approved of him taking so much as a step into the building. Nevertheless, he had no real choice at the moment. He heard the car drive away behind him – he truly had been left here alone.

“Hey son. You alright?”

Yoongi jumped, turning to look at whoever had talked to him. A skeezy looking man stood there, a smirk on his face. As he watched, the man leaned in closer. “I can help you, you know.”

Immediate anger. Yoongi could practically feel his pheromones pumping out of his body, even though you weren’t meant to be able to do that. He stood up straighter, fighting the urge to bare his teeth. “I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to seem as alpha as possible.

It wasn’t difficult. He watched the creep startle back – he had probably thought Yoongi was an omega because of his height. More people than Yoongi would like did that, and It drove him crazy every time.

The guy looked like he didn’t know whether he wanted to back off or take the challenge that was implicit any time alphas argued.

Before Yoongi got himself into another brawl, he walked away and towards the building. Well, at least it was some sort of incentive for him to actually get in there. (Plus he was beginning to feel cold, stood out there on the sidewalk.)

At least the company had delivered his belongings earlier. He couldn’t imagine how much more exposed he would have felt if he had his valuables with him right now.

He pulled out the keyring that he had been given. There were at least ten keys on there – some of them were for the company building, he knew. He just… didn’t know which ones were which.

Then came the ten minutes where he tried every single key in the door at least twice. One of them had to work, he was sure of it. If it didn’t, he would have to sleep on the streets or something. He had no idea how he would get back to the company building from here, and even if he did, it was unlikely that anyone would still be around this late.

His motions began to get frantic. One of them had to work, it had to, when he had no other

The lock turned with a worrying screech. It felt rusty, and like there was a very good chance that you needed a special technique to open it.

Thankfully, the door itself opened easily. Holding the information the driver had given him in his head, and hoping that he was going to be able to make it to the dorm.

At least now he’d be able to shelter somewhere warm and dry if he got lost in the building.

Naturally, there were two sets of stairs in front of him. Why there was a need for two he didn’t know, but what he did know was that he was very confused. Some of his anger from before began to seep back inside him. Being an alpha could be hard sometimes – it could be so hard to let go of the anger.

Well, one of them had to be picked at random. He had no choice but to exploring.

On a whim, he chose the staircase to the right. Probably because it was lit slightly better, ever so slightly so that he didn’t feel like a murderer might be hiding in wait.

It occurred to him, as he alighted the first flight, that perhaps effectively having to try all the doors in the building was probably a bad idea. Especially since he was likely to be seen as a threat, as an alpha.

Quickly it became increasingly clear that he really needed to work on his fitness. It was something they’d brought up to him during his auditions, but it was something he tried to not think about most of the time. As he began to pant the longer he had to climb, the more he began to wonder whether he should take a break. (And, coincidentally, began to wonder whether all of this would be worth it. Living in a building with no elevator for a while? Sounded like a right nightmare.)

Standing, breathing harder than he would like, feeling tired from all the travelling he’d done today, he tried to motivate himself by thinking about why he was doing this in the first place. He was going to be a famous rapper. He was going to make people think with his clever lyrics, and he was going to make people see that Min Yoongi was a force to be reckoned with. And, hopefully, he was going to get all the omegas. He hadn’t had much luck with that so far, but he was certain that once they saw how impressive he was, they’d flock to him. It was bound to happen.

Okay, time to keep climbing, and looking out for a door. There hadn’t been sign of one yet – but there had to be one at some point, otherwise what was the point of this staircase, right?

(What if his roommate was awful? Yoongi wondered. He knew he was going to be living with the other trainee that BigHit had at the moment – the one that bang had talked about with such fondness that Yoongi had almost been pre-emptively jealous.)

He couldn’t afford to be worrying about that too much though. Cool rappers didn’t get anxiety. He had to get over that.

The guy would respect him. Yoongi reminded himself what he had told himself before he came up here. He didn’t need to be friends with the other trainees so long as they respected him.

There was a door. It had a light just above it, one which flashed on and off seemingly at random intervals. Yoongi also did his best to not look downwards. He didn’t want to think too hard about the state of the carpet under his feet.

He stared despondently at the keyring again. Okay, he thought, pulling the key that had let him into the building aside, it won’t be that one. So it has to be one of the other nine. And that was assuming that he even had the right door.

But he had to chance it.

He tried the first one. And the second. And the third.

He had a horrific image of none of them working and being trapped in the building. It didn’t particularly appeal to him.

The fourth key turned in the lock.

With trepidation, he pushed the door open.

The first thing he was hit with was the smell of alpha. Strong, musky, pungent. Whoever this was, they had lived here for a while. Long enough for them to feel like this place was theirs, and long enough for their scent to permeate the whole apartment.

That was probably a bad sign.

Yoongi gulped. No, he had to keep being strong. He would never get anywhere in this industry if he didn’t stay as strong as possible.

He switched on the light for the room. He was aware of just how late it was right now, and the fact that his new roommate was probably asleep right now.

Trying to stay as quiet as possible, he shut the door behind him. Naturally, it thudded loudly into place, making the walls shake slightly.

There was no reaction from anyone.

Assuming that he had gotten off free, he began to look around. It wasn’t exactly…. Tidy in here, but it wasn’t terrible either. It just kinda looked like whoever lived here often forgot that it was necessary to tidy up every once in a while.

With a jolt, Yoongi realised that his bags were part of the mess. Clearly they hadn’t been touched since they were delivered there this afternoon, which he appreciated, but it didn’t help him to know which room would be his.

He picked them up. He could see one door down the way – that would probably be a pretty good bet for at least one of the rooms. If his roommate wasn’t going to be in, then he could at least explore.

The closer he got to the room, the more he felt like he was snooping. What if the room was his roommate’s, and he got mad at him for looking at his stuff? Yoongi might not have lived with roommates before, but he knew well enough that people generally didn’t appreciate others going into their rooms, even when they were friends.

Probably the best move would be to knock, just in case? There was no light coming from under the door, so Yoongi was pretty sure that there was nobody in there…. But it couldn’t hurt to just make sure.

He rapped on the door. The sound was much smaller than he wanted – but still, there was no sound of stirring from inside the room.

Feeling more confident, Yoongi tried the handle. There was no lock on the door, and it opened with ease, the only door in the building which felt like it didn’t need a good oiling.

Yoongi’s eyes took a moment to adjust – and to see the faint glow of light coming from a computer screen, as well as the silhouette of the person using it.

He took one half step back – and the silhouette turned around.

They stared at each other.

“Oh my god, get out!”

Yoongi fell over himself stumbling out of the room. “Oh god,” he muttered to himself, clutching his bags tightly. The room had smelled even stronger than the rest of the apartment – clearly that was the place that this alpha spent most of his time.

Right, so there had to be another room in here.

Yoongi looked around. The short corridor which had come off of the living room only two other doors.

Nervously, he tried the first door. It opened – to show a kitchen.

He looked at it for a second.

Yep – everything that made it a kitchen was there. Oven, fridge, sink, many many cupboards. No sign of a bed.

Yoongi stepped out. Looking up and down the corridor, he wondered whether he had missed something – a hidden door, perhaps.

There was no sign of such a thing.

He turned around again.

The door he had opened into the bedroom was still ajar, he realised. Now there was more light coming out from the crack in the door, and he could see – and hear - movement flickering inside.

He gulped. If this was his only choice, then he would have to be brave. Be bold.

Knocking on the door, Yoongi heard the footsteps come to a halt.

It was flung open. Again, the smell of alpha came rushing out, almost overwhelming him. It took everything in Yoongi to avoid taking this as a threat – he could feel the way that his heart beat was increasing already, ready to fight.

The alpha from the other side looked frazzled, to say the least. He had several gold chains around his neck, as well as rings on his fingers. His shirt looked a little like it had only just been put on – it was mostly tucked into his dark wash jeans, but with a few patches awkwardly pulled up.

“What do you want?” He growled, stepping into Yoongi’s space.

Yoongi stood his ground. “I’m the new trainee,” he said, doing his best to make his shoulders look broader. “Where’s my room?”

The man blinked at him.

Then the door was slammed in his face.

The only thing that saved Yoongi’s toes from being broken was an inch of carpet. For a minute, he stood there, being entirely confused. Then the sound of talking – loud, angry – reached him, and he realised that a phone call was being made.

He stood in that spot for longer than he would have liked. The sound of the voice didn’t stop – and it was after about five minutes that Yoongi realised he was wasting his time, apparently.

No. He was meant to have been given a bedroom. He had been promised that much when he signed up, and he would settle for no less. Putting his bags down on the floor, he prepared to enter.

He tried the handle. It wasn’t locked, and the door opened to the view of a well-lit, but untidy bedroom.

In fact, the man from before was clearly sat on a bed, which was covered in a lot of the mess. Yoongi got the feeling that it wasn’t often used as a bed, mostly based on the amount of things on it, but also because of the other bed on the other side of the room.

A phone was being pressed angrily against the man’s head. In fact, Yoongi didn’t even think that he had noticed him coming into the room, mostly based on the scowl currently twisting his face.

“What’s going on?” Yoongi demanded. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was late, and he was tired, and he had a headache. All he had wanted to do was collapse into bed and worry about this sort of thing tomorrow, only now he was having to deal with a roommate who clearly wanted anything else to be happening.

A hand was waved in his direction. Dismissive, and rude. Good god, Yoongi was beginning to regret signing up for any of this if it meant he was going to have to live with this person.

Taking matters into his own hands, Yoongi began to walk in his direction – and was brought to a halt when he began to talk into the phone. “What do you mean there’s nothing you can do? You said –“ A pause. “No. No you didn’t tell me.”

They made eye contact. Yoongi got the feeling that he wasn’t really looking at him, though.

Eventually, the phone was put down. The scowl didn’t fade, though.

“I don’t want you in here.” It was blunt – Yoongi could almost appreciate that. “This is my room. I didn’t know…”

Yoongi could have a good guess at what it was that he hadn’t known. “Well I was told I was going to have a bed and a room in here.” He crossed his arms. Despite his best efforts, he could feel the pheromones spilling out of him in a feeble attempt to overcome the stronger scent in the room. Everything about this interaction was bringing out the territorial alpha in him.

A shrug. “Fuck that.”

Before Yoongi had the chance to argue, a hand had landed on his shoulder, and found himself being guided out of the room. “You need to sleep somewhere else.”

It became overwhelmingly clear as they took those steps that the other alpha was so much taller than him. Given that that was something that usually brought out the worst in him, it only made him feel even worse. The place where the man’s hand was touching his shoulder practically itched, and he rolled his shoulder to shake it off.

“Why should I?” He asked, turning around in the doorway.

He saw the man hesitate – but then it left, leaving him unsure whether he saw it or not.

“Because I need my own space.”

It – it was a reason that Yoongi could understand. That didn’t mean that he had to be happy about it, though.

Yoongi narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you, man.”

If this guy was going to be like that, then he wasn’t about to push it about sharing a room with him. He could deal with just being uncomfortable on the couch if it meant he didn’t have to share a room with someone so awful.

The other snorted.

Yoongi did his best to march out of there with his head held high. Without looking back, he picked up his bag at the door, and walked back through to the living room, which was just as messy as he remembered it being.

Faintly he heard the door closing behind him – clearly Mr unsociable wanted to forget that this had ever happened. That was fine by Yoongi – he was going to speak to management tomorrow about getting some other place. Literally any other place.

Since he still needed somewhere to actually sleep, Yoongi picked the less gross looking couch and began to clear some of the crap off of it.

There was a worrying amount of take-out garbage on there, as well as dirty clothes mixed into it. Yoongi couldn’t tell if this was due to forgetfulness, or their manager not doing a particularly good job. Personally, Yoongi was hoping for the former.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult to just dump all of it onto the floor. There was no way he was going to stay here longer than that, and so he didn’t worry too much about having to put it away anywhere.

Thankfully, he had packed a blanket in one of his bags. After a minute of fighting to find it, he pulled it out and went about getting into ‘bed’ as best as he could.

As he hunkered down that night, he found that it was rather difficult. The smell of the other alpha assaulted his nose more and more the longer he stayed in here. It was often said that the longer you stayed around a smell, the harder it was to detect it, but the opposite seemed to be true here. It remained as strong as ever, prickling at his nose like tea tree oil, stifling out any other scent.

Perhaps it was the alpha in him. There was no fighting the instincts that told him that he was in another alpha’s territory, and that he needed to leave.

But he was also aware that it was likely linked to the fact that he already didn’t like this alpha at all. Any reminder of him would be too much.

Wishing there was some way to close his nose, Yoongi finally found sleep after several hours of tossing and turning.

**

“Yes, we have one other trainee at the moment.”

“Just the one?”

“Yes, one. He’s been here for about a year – he’s very talented. We have high hopes for him. We hope that you two will be colleagues, at least.”

“I’m sure we will.”

“Well the two of you will have to work very closely. You have very similar styles – I hope that this will allow an ease of communication and a harmonisation of ideas.”

“I hope so too.”

**

“What do you mean?” The voice hissed loudly.

Yoongi’s eyelids fluttered. What was going on? That wasn’t his dad’s or his brother’s voice. Why…?

The face of the asshole from yesterday swam in front of him as his eyes opened. He was sat perched on the end of Yoongi’s couch, as far from Yoongi’s feet as possible.

He stilled. It looked like the man hadn’t realised that he was awake – and if he pretended to still be asleep, he could listen in on what he was saying.

“But I just – no, no I wasn’t,” the man said. Yoongi had closed his eyes, so he didn’t know what the man looked like right now. “I don’t –“

Yoongi could smell the pheromones being released, and they were intense.  Clearly the guy didn’t want him to live here – not that that was anything new to Yoongi. Staying as still as possible, he watched as the phone call finished up.

It didn’t take long for him to storm out of the apartment. Yoongi wasn’t sure how long he was going to be gone for, but he knew he needed to take advantage of the time the apartment would be empty.

He threw his blanket off. Standing up, he stretched out, trying to get rid of the minor aches and cramps that had come about as a result of sleeping on a couch. It worked, somewhat – he didn’t feel any more sore than he usually did.

Right – clearly phoning the people wasn’t going to work. He was going to have to go in person, to explain the situation himself. Explain why he couldn’t work with someone like that. Not for anything.

His stomach rumbled.

Okay, first things first.

Leaving his bag in the living room – if nobody else was going to come in, then he could afford to do that – he wandered through to the kitchen. Normally he’d feel bad about taking food from others – but that guy could afford to be missing a few cereal bars. The company probably provided him with most of the food anyway. It wasn’t like he was going to be missing any of it greatly.

Rooting through the cupboards, Yoongi was surprised to find that there was very little actual food in there. That sort of explained all the take-out containers he had found last night – if there was no food to cook with in, then it made sense to just order it.

Eventually, he came across a snack cupboard. It seemed to be the only one that was generously stocked – there were packets of crisps in there, along with various kinds of cookies, and Yoongi knew from the moment that he laid eyes on them that he was about to have a feast.

Pulling out two of the packets, he tore into them, sitting down on the floor for lack of anywhere any better to sit. It left him feeling a little like an unpresented toddler, sat cross-legged like he was, but he found that he really didn’t care all that much. It was a good position for eating as many cookies as he could fit in his mouth, and that was all he cared about right now.

They were crumbly in just the right way, buttery and fresh. The chocolate chips only added an extra element to the deliciousness – it was wonderful. Letting out a small moan of appreciation, he leant his head back against the cabinet behind him.

It wasn’t as filling as a proper mean, but it did a good job all the same.

By the time he was finished, he could feel the crumbs around his mouth without even needing to touch them. Wiping them away with the back of his hand, he stood up, knees clicking as he did.

The apartment was silent. Eerily so. He checked the time, something he should have done earlier, really. 10.30. Right – about his usual time then, or maybe a little earlier. It did explain why there was no noise from anyone else in the building, then.

As well as seeing the time on his phone, Yoongi also noticed that he had a message from the manager he had been assigned. He hadn’t met him yet, but he knew that he had been meant to meet him today.

Manager-nim
Yoongi, you need to come in for a meeting today

Manager-nim
We’d appreciate it if you could be in at around 9

Yoongi stared at that last number. They had sent the texts at 8am – how exactly did they expect him to have been awake in time to see either of those? Rather poor planning, as far as he was concerned.

Well, there was no sense in rushing now. Even if he did, he would still be horrifically late – there would be no real difference there.

But of course, he also had to think about the logistics of what he was about to do. For a moment, he deliberated bringing his bags with him. It would make sense, and it would make his point about not staying here – but they were very heavy to bring all the way with him. It might end up backfiring.

No, he should leave them here, and then that way at least they’d (probably) be safe. He could always have one of the other staff members move them again. That seemed reasonable.

Bringing the keys with him, so he could return them, he put a jacket on and left the building. It was less stressful this time, knowing where he was going – not that it was going to matter, when he never came here again.

He got out into the outside world just as it began to rain. Scowling, he pulled his coat tighter around him. He had an umbrella – at least, he owned a broken umbrella. He still hadn’t gotten rid of it, but it wasn’t a useful thing to have any more. And he didn’t have the money to replace it just yet.

As he walked the streets of Seoul, using Naver to navigate, he thought about the fact that he wasn’t going to have to sell albums on the street any more. These streets would never have to deal with an alpha who just wanted to make music – not this alpha, at least.

It took him a while to find the place again. Even with maps right in front of him, he still managed to take a few wrong turns, and get ever so slightly lost. It took him probably about ten minutes longer than it should have been – but even then, he was still running very, very late.

Eventually he came across the building. It was small, and unassuming – you could almost miss it if you weren’t looking out for it. Luckily, he’d been brought here straight from the train station yesterday. He knew where to go – even if he’d nearly forgotten where the main entrance was, located down the alleyway just to the side.

He didn’t have the code to get in. Belatedly, he remembered that that had been one of the things they were meant to set up this morning.

Feeling awkward, and already loathing the idea that he was going to have to speak to someone through the system, he pressed the button to talk to the receptionist.

And waited.

A full minute went by before he realised that the receptionist probably wasn’t at their desk right now. Pressing the button again, and knocking on the door for good measure, he worriedly began to crack his knuckles. For the first time today, some level of worry began to creep in. What if he had actually left it too late? What if his thinking that he was going to be just fine had been too confident, and actually he had arrived when nobody else was here?

Just as he was beginning to think that he wasn’t going to get to see anyone from the company – and more importantly, have to go back to that apartment – today, the door opened.

An omega that he recognised from yesterday stood there, looking at her phone. She was chewing gum, and didn’t even look at him as she said, “yeah?”

Yoongi cleared his throat. Like a typical omega, she continued to pay him very little attention. “I’m here for a meeting,” he said, trying to push his way into the building. If he could just get inside, then he’d be able to get to the offices.

The omega’s eyes widened as he tried to push past her. “Sir, you can’t –“ she began to say, trying to keep him back.

Then she looked at him properly – and seemed to recognise him. At least, Yoongi was pretty sure that was why she let him go.

With a quick explanation of why he was there, Yoongi quickly found himself being ushered through the building to the back offices. (The receptionist had had one very tense phone call with someone about him – it was probably to do with how late he was. He’d taken a minute to check the time, and it was already midday. Oops.) He thought that he sort of recognised the route, but yesterday he had been much more overwhelmed at the very idea of being here.

Eventually, they turned into a hallway, one which was more brightly lit than any other part of the building that Yoongi had seen so far. It didn’t look familiar to Yoongi – and yet he got the feeling that it was the most important one yet.

“I’ll leave you here,” the receptionist said, her soft omega scent wafting over him. “Just go in that door, they’re waiting for you.”

Holding his head high, Yoongi opened the door.

“Yoongi! So wonderful to see you again!” The first person to speak was the CEO of the company. Yoongi had met him briefly yesterday – as much as you could when you were going through an orientation of the whole building and all the people in it. Somehow, his open and happy face made Yoongi believe that he really meant it.

Awkwardly, Yoongi smiled back. He didn’t have it in him to be fully happy, not when he was still frustrated about the situation.

It didn’t help that his new roommate was in the room, too. Unlike last night – and this morning – he didn’t look angry, only mildly concerned.

“Come in, sit down.” He was manhandled in much the same way he had been earlier, only this time it was to be forced into a chair in front of the desk that took up most of the space in the room. Unfortunately, the chair in question was the one right next to his roommate. Literally the worst place they could have put him in that moment.

Trying not to appear too visibly distressed, or to upset anyone with pheromones, Yoongi tried to stay calm. Instinct screamed at him that the best way to get his way would be to just bulldoze his way into what he wanted to do. Logic told him that that would be the quickest way to get fired.

Keeping his breathing slow, he tried to let the beta scents of both the CEO and his manager fill the air as much as possible. That was the whole point of betas – to help society deal with alphas who were too determined to control things. Yoongi liked to think that he wasn’t one of those alphas.

“So how have you found your first day?” The CEO’s demeanour was as pleasant as it had been before – like he really expected for Yoongi’s answer to be that he had loved it all, and that everything was great.

“Not… not great,” Yoongi said finally, looking at his roommate briefly. He hadn’t known what he expected to see there, but it wasn’t a strange kind of embarrassment.

A chuckle. “Yes, I heard about that,” the CEO said, sounding very light about the whole thing. “Poor Namjoon here was very surprised when you came in. I hear that you had a bit of a tiff about the whole thing – and for that I can only apologise. We forgot to tell Namjoon that it was going to happen in good enough time.”

Oh.

Yoongi glanced at Namjoon again. The embarrassment that he had been showing before seemed to have increased – and the CEO’s next words clarified what he had meant. “We had meant to tell Namjoon last week, but he’s been so wrapped up in his latest project that he never got round to us being able to tell him about you.”

Okay, yeah, that explained the way that he had been so surprised – and also why he had wanted to get Yoongi out of the room so much.

(Some small part of Yoongi, the part which had been mostly stamped out of him over the years, began to feel guilty about how he’d been acting.)

Namjoon didn’t say anything. Yoongi hadn’t really been expecting him to, but it would have been nice to have some sort of apology for what had gone on last night.

There was some more explanation about roles, about how things were going to work around here. A lot of it was the same things he was told yesterday – but he got the feeling that this was something that Namjoon needed to hear as well.

In spite of that knowledge, Yoongi still sort of felt like they were wasting his time. He was an alpha ready to get to work – shouldn’t he be made busy by these betas already?

He had to wait patiently, instead. The fact that Namjoon was sat and listening made Yoongi want to do it too just to compete.

Was that stupid? Maybe, but he did it anyway.

After what was probably an hour, but felt much longer, the meeting ended – or rather, they took a break. The CEO said that they needed time to talk, and Yoongi was all fine with that. They stood up, and Yoongi wondered what he should do while he waited for the break to be over.

Namjoon stood up next to him – and before Yoongi could manage to say anything, Namjoon had grabbed his arm. Instinctively, Yoongi bristled. Having another alpha around was too threatening – even if it didn’t seem like Namjoon was having the same problem.

He got pulled over to the side of the room, away from the CEO. That worried him a little – what if Namjoon was going to be a dick to him right now without their bosses being able to tell?

Namjoon looked at him with a very earnest expression. It was very serious, and very much the sort of thing that Yoongi could appreciate. That is, if Namjoon hadn’t been so much of a dick to him before.

“I’m sorry for how that must have looked, yesterday,” Namjoon said. “I didn’t realise –“

Yoongi shook his hand off of his shoulder. “I don’t want your apologies,” he replied coldly. “All I want to do is to make music here. I don’t need you to be my friend, I just need you to respect that.”

Namjoon’s eyes turned sad. “If that’s what you want.” Then he turned to look at bang pd again. “I hope living with me won’t be too hard on you.”

Yoongi ignored the pang of guilt that spiked through him. he was too busy feeling frustrated for that. “I hope I don’t disturb you too much,” he spat back.

He had been trying to hurt – but when Namjoon’s face went blank, he had to ignore the small part of him that wondered whether that had been the right thing to do. It was harder to do than he wanted.

“I’ll see you later.” And with that, the conversation was over.

Yoongi felt a little flustered as he watched Namjoon walk away.

Suddenly, he very much felt like he was the one with no power or knowledge – which, admittedly, had been true this entire time, but he hadn’t liked to think about it. Namjoon knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing. It was where Yoongi wanted to be – but he just wasn’t yet.

“So, are you ready to get to work then?” His manager asked.

Yoongi did his best to bring himself out of his thoughts. Namjoon wasn’t here to be his friend, he reminded himself. It didn’t matter if they got on – it only mattered that music would be made.

“I am.” He sounded as certain as he could make it.

Unlike yesterday, when all he got was a quick tour before being shoved off to their dorm, this time Yoongi realised that they really were getting to work. “This is the main studio we have,” they explained, “Namjoon has his own equipment, bless him, but he’s very protective over it. I’m sure you’ll have seen it in your bedroom, but we can’t make him share it with you. If you need to make your music here, at any time of the day or night, you’re more than welcome to do that. You just need to make sure that you lock everything up when you’re done.”

It was very good to know that they were up for him and his creative process. He hadn’t wanted to admit his night owl tendencies at the beginning – it wasn’t something that he had thought that they would he happy about, given the way that most companies operated.

“Right – we should get you sorted with your id card,” his manager said when they were done talking, beginning to look a little stressed. “I forgot that we didn’t do that yesterday.”

With that, he was rushed off to the reception again, where they proceeded to do some complicated things with pictures and with the computer, and before he knew it he was holding a badge and a piece of paper with access codes written on.

Once it seemed like he was sorted with everything he would need, he was taken back into the studio.

He was asked if he knew how to work their specific tech, and when he said he didn’t, he was treated to a run down on how it all worked. Not that he didn’t know how to make music at all, just that it was this stuff. Which was way better than anything he could have got on his own dime. For BigHit being a small company, they still managed to do better than him in that respect.

It took longer than Yoongi expected just to get him completely familiar and comfortable with how it all worked. Still, he got the feeling that they’d rather him be comfortable and be able to work unsupervised, and he could get that – besides, he preferred working alone. His dad had always said that any alpha who needed their hand held during their work was weak, and he was never wrong.

They didn’t let him have a go at the wheel just yet, but that was okay. Yoongi was pretty sure that he had already demonstrated to them that he had a good grasp of how to make a good song, and he was also sure that they’d let him start doing proper stuff soon.

By the end of the session Yoongi felt pretty much as confident as he had when they’d started. It wasn’t a bad thing – just that he didn’t think that he’d learned much more than he already knew. Still, he thanked them for taking the time to get him up to speed anyway.

“So tomorrow, if you could be here by 10am at the latest, we can get started on some real work,” bang said to him as they were showing him out. “Goodnight.”

Tonight felt a little more like Yoongi imagined the rest of his time here would. There was no car to take him to the dorm tonight, only his own legs. Yesterday was simply a treat, he suspected, a result of them trying to impress him.

Stepping out into the cool night, he shivered slightly. Perhaps he should take to bringing a jacket in with him in the morning, if he was going to be staying this late every day.

Well. Technically it wasn’t late, but it was autumn, and it was dark already.

Making his walk brisk in an attempt to warm himself, Yoongi set his thoughts on what was going to happen when he arrived at the new flat. He would need food, that was for sure, and he would also need to have made sure that he had somewhere to sleep. Even if it involved making a proper bed for himself on the floor – he didn’t want to get stuck on that couch forever.

Then his thoughts turned to food. He knew from his look around the kitchen earlier that there was literally no food in there. Nothing that would do for a full meal, at least.

Did he feel like ordering in? He thought on that for a moment, and then decided that he didn’t. Food delivery was efficient in Seoul, that much was true, but he would still have to wait half an hour or so for it to be made and delivered. He could do that, sure, but he was hungry now.

His stomach growled at that moment, agreeing with him.

Knowing that tomorrow he should go out and buy some real groceries, Yoongi decided to treat himself, and ducked into one of the small fried chicken shops that lined the street. At least with going here, he would definitely get something filling and that he knew he would like.

He sat down, somehow tired from the five minutes of walking he’d done so far, and ordered as quickly as possible. The biggest advantage of getting food directly in the shop was that it would be warm. He tended to be cold at the best of times, and it wasn’t helped by the nipping chill in the air this evening that not even his walking could shift.

Furtively, like he was worried that someone was going to come tell him off for it, he pulled his phone out. He’d barely looked at it at all the past two days – there had just been so much going on, so much that he needed to be paying absolute attention to or risk having all this fall apart.

There was the obligatory text from his mom telling him that if it didn’t work out, he was welcome back home. He swiped it away. There was also a text from his dad telling him that it had better work out, or else. He swiped that away too. He knew that the man was just waiting for him to fail – and if that happened, Yoongi would never live it down.

There was one message that Yoongi was interested in, though. It was from one of the boys from his old crew. He had been an omega, but he’d fitted in with the rest of them just fine, able to take on the rest of them in a rap battle as well as anyone else. He was wondering how Yoongi was doing, up in the big city.

Smiling, Yoongi replied.

Me
Yeah, it’s not too bad
You should have seen where im living tho
I swear my roommate hasn’t tidied up there for about a year

Maybe that made it sound worse than it was.

He was deliberating over whether he should make it sound more desirable (this omega and him had danced around the idea of getting together for a while, and there was every chance of him coming up to visit) when his food arrived.

Immediately, all his attention was diverted to that. “Thank you,” he just about remembered to say to the waiter, before beginning to dig in.

If he had thought that he was hungry before, he hadn’t realised just how much worse it was until he had the smells of fried chicken wafting up at him like it had been sent from heaven itself.

Almost before he even knew it, he had demolished the entire plate, leaving a neat pile of bones, picked clean, on his plate.

Groaning, he rubbed a hand over his belly. It felt full even from the outside, and he wished he didn’t have to get up and walk back home right now.

But the restaurant was full already, and he didn’t want to take up room when there were people looking for a seat.

He gave himself a minute to sit and feel a little less bloated – and then had to get up to go back. He packed up his things reluctantly, and made his way out of the restaurant, winding his way through the other tables and chairs.

Thankfully, the rest of the walk home didn’t feel like it had taken a million years to traverse. He walked quickly though the packed streets, being suddenly tired and also wishing he was at home.

By the time Yoongi got back to the apartment, he was worried about what was going to happen right now. He hadn’t seen Namjoon since earlier – what if things had changed since then? Alphas weren’t exactly known for being able to be rational during times of stress – Yoongi had experienced that often enough. What if Namjoon had had time to think things over and had changed his mind about things?

As he unlocked the door, he braced himself for what might be about to come at him.

Nothing.

In fact, it didn’t look like the apartment had been disturbed at all since he left. Had Namjoon come back here after all? Even his bags were still packed from earlier, sitting right by the door where he’d left them.

Embarrassed, he picked them up and walked down the hall to the bedroom. The fact that all of the mess was still on the floor made Yoongi pretty sure that nobody had been back here since –

Oh. Nope.

Yoongi stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching Namjoon being sat at his computer, doing… whatever it was he was doing.

He coughed. That seemed to do the trick – Namjoon turned around with a start, almost seeming surprised that Yoongi had turned up.

Namjoon stood up. “Hi there,” he said, hands by his side, slightly too still to be comfortable. “I – I cleared your bed off for you. I hope you don’t mind.”

For the first time, Yoongi looked over to the other side of the room. Sure enough, the bed that had been covered in various items the previous day was empty, with sheets on it that looked like they’d been folded up for the past century and then put on in a hurry.

“Thank you.” Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be grateful.

(The fact that the bed was pretty much the only part of the room that appeared to have been cleared wasn’t lost on him.)

Namjoon nodded. Looking at his feet, it very much seemed that he had no idea what to do or say next.

Ignoring him for now, Yoongi walked over to ‘his’ bed, and put his things down on it. To be fair, it didn’t seem like a bad bed – he guessed that Namjoon pretty much hadn’t used it at all in the time that he’d been living here.

For a moment, Yoongi felt a flash of curiosity work its way through him. How long had Namjoon been here, he wondered? What did he think of the company? Of living here? What were his dreams?

Then there was a pumping out of alpha pheromones into the air. Namjoon was facing away from him again, distracted by something on his computer, but Yoongi knew it was him.

Some of the good will he had been feeling towards the other man faded a little. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that they were going to be sharing the same space for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t like they were going to have to attempt to control the alpha side of both of them while they stayed here together.

Namjoon would know as well as he did that something like that was marking his territory. And right after he’d finally accepted Yoongi staying here, too.

With a small growl, Yoongi vigorously opened one of his bags. It had all his clean clothes in – clothes, it would seem, that would just have to live inside this bag for now.

Grabbing some clean ones, he headed off to the bathroom. Namjoon paid him no attention as he did, but he knew that he had to be able to hear the way that he was stomping his way there, showing his displeasure in the most subtle way he could think to.

If only it weren’t for the blindingly obvious fact that taking a shower reduces your ability to scent anything, Yoongi would have tried to do that to the best of his abilities in the bathroom.

Instead, it was perhaps the angriest shower he had ever taken. As he scrubbed away at his chest, he could see red lines forming from where his nails had scratched over his skin – and he definitely didn’t care as much as he should about that.

“Stupid alphas…” he muttered to himself, as though he wasn’t also one of those stupid alphas sometimes. Not that he was always – and other alphas were definitely worse than him. For sure.

But in this case he was pretty sure that he was dealing with an alpha who wasn’t too smart, and would think himself better than Yoongi just because he was taller. That had happened plenty often, and Yoongi had pretty much come to expect it now. Just because the guy could make a decent track, didn’t mean he had to be clever in any way. If nothing else, the mixed signals he was sending were a signal in and of itself to Yoongi that he didn’t have a clue what his own thoughts were on the whole matter. And that wasn’t good.

Yoongi tried to draw out the shower as long as he could, but there was only so much he could do to prolong the amount of time he had until he could go and try to get some sleep.

The thought that he was wasting water and driving up their water bill was the only thing that drove him out of the shower, in the end. Everything was paid for by the company, sure, but he didn’t want to get into crazy amounts of debt right from the get go. He knew that it was unlikely that he was going to get super popular with his music – they weren’t likely to be able to pay back what was getting poured into them, and the company had to know that already.

Pulling his threadbare towel around himself, he began to try himself slowly. It scratched at his skin, the rough and old fabric having lost its softness to the washing machine long ago. He would never get fully dry with this towel, but he could do his best to not be too damp getting into bed.

His pyjamas were simply an old t-shirt and his underwear. At home he would usually skip the t-shirt, but if Namjoon was going to be seeing him, he wanted to be covered as best as he could.

Trying to cover the fact that he was very skinny with his day clothes, Yoongi skittered back into the bedroom, lingering chills from getting out of the shower still pursuing him.

Namjoon had very muchly gone back to what he had been doing – his headphones were on, and it didn’t look like he had any intention of going to sleep any time soon.

Awkwardly Yoongi padded over to ‘his’ bed, putting his clothes on the end of it and pulling back the covers.

He wondered whether he should announce to Namjoon that he was going to bed now.

No, that seemed a bit too weird. He didn’t even know Namjoon, it was unlikely that he was going to care.

Instead, he simply walked over and switched off the light.

Immediately, the room looked much like it had done the night before, with the light from Namjoon’s computer glowing up the entire room. It didn’t bother Yoongi as much as he thought it might have. He had been used to his brother’s phone lighting up the room they shared growing up, and this was a lot like it.

Namjoon didn’t seem to care all that much about it. That was good – it meant that Yoongi could get on with what he wanted to do.

Trying not to trip up on his way back over to the bed, Yoongi was finally able to get into bed. He didn’t even know why he was so tired – it wasn’t like he usually felt the need to go to bed at 10pm, but all the stress of the day must have tuckered him out.

The moment his head hit the pillow, he was out.

**

The next morning, Yoongi woke up to a fresh slice of toast sat next to him.

Without even thinking about it, he picked it up and began to eat it. There was no doubt that it was for him – it had been sat right on his bedside table, there could be no other recipient.

It was as he was finishing it up that he began to wonder how it had appeared there. He had assumed that it must have been their manager who had come in and made him breakfast – at least, his sleep-brain had – but the more awake he got, the more unlikely he thought that was. It wasn’t like he had the fame to have someone make food for him without having to ask first. And even then, it didn’t seem like his manager, an almost complete stranger, would think it worth it to come make him breakfast.

That left only one other person who it could have possibly have been. Only one other person who had access to their apartment, who could have cooked without Namjoon knowing.

Namjoon himself.

But the deed was done – he had eaten the toast, had accepted the apology. If, indeed, that was what it was meant to be. For all Yoongi knew this was a purely practical thing.

Resisting the urge to pick up his phone and roll over, Yoongi got out of bed. It was chilly in the apartment – perhaps the heating hadn’t been turned on this morning? – and he could feel goosebumps forming on his arms and legs. To be fair, that was sort of what he deserved for going to bed only in his boxers.

Still, the fact that Namjoon was more than likely just... hanging out, just acting like that wasn't weird. Well, it made Yoongi feel a little odd.

He couldn't remember Namjoon having gone to bed last night, but logic said that he must have done. It must have happened sometime not long after he went to sleep, as well, otherwise he would never have been able to get up in time. it just didn't make sense.

The bed on the other side of the room was rumpled, at least. That was some sort of proof of his hypothesis, that Namjoon wasn't just some cryptid who never slept but somehow managed to function. Plus, the room was filled with their mixed alpha scents, a smell which was much more pleasing to him than to just have the one scent of an unfamiliar alpha all around him. Perhaps that was why he'd slept so much better last night.

He still had plenty of time to get to the studio on time. It was one of the many pleasant things about going to sleep early - but one which often enough wasn't good enough to keep him from staying up just to do a little bit more, and a little bit more.

He pulled out fresh clothes. (It reminded him that he should probably start thinking about figuring out how laundry worked here - he certainly would need to know soon, because he hadn't brought many clothes with him. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but the more he had to actually live with the fact that he had no reason to rewear clothes day after day, the more he would know how much he really needed to do his laundry.)

Well... he looked at the t-shirt, and thought about how much he didn't want to have to do his own laundry. He put the shirt down, and picked up yesterday's - and a hoodie, to hide it with. Perfect.

Now that he was fed, and dressed, and ready to face the day, Yoongi grabbed his phone and his wallet - and his keys, nearly forgot those - and walked out of the bedroom.

The apartment was just as quiet and empty as the bedroom had been. It was eerie, almost, like there was a ghost afoot who had just left. He peeked into the kitchen - there were signs of recent disturbances, with a significant amount of mess on the countertops, but no Namjoon. The living room showed a similar story, with some movement of items, but no real sign that anyone else was in the place.

Well, now Yoongi didn't know whether he felt better or worse about thinking Namjoon had been in here.

Checking the time, and realising that it was far too late for him to clean up all the mess before he had to go, he had to settle for just... not. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but all the same, he knew he could do it later just as easily.

He hurried down to the BigHit building, hoping that he was going to be able to figure out everything by the time that he got there. The route was much more familiar this time - and much easier now that he wasn't stressing about trying to get moved apartments.

In fact, in spite of his reluctance yesterday, he found himself quite enjoying this little commute. If only his relations with Namjoon were better, then maybe he'd be able to enjoy it even better. But clearly that wasn't going to be an option, not when the other alpha seemed to not care at all about whether he allowed Yoongi to have an easy time of it.

Putting that thought out of his mind, he continued on to the studio, finding that with the route memorised, he really did know what he was doing in all this.

He got to the studio, came up to the door, and... realised that he'd forgotten to memorise the passcode for the door. Cursing himself, he frantically patted his pockets hoping that he had the paper necessary, wondering exactly how embarrassing it would be for him if he had to phone up and admit that he'd messed up already...

He looked up just in time to see Namjoon yank the door open, see him, and visibly do a double take. "Yoongi-ssi," he said stiffly, immediately stiffening up. The guy really wasn't subtle in all his alpha body language, Yoongi realised - it hadn't just been an effect of anger, he really just wasn't that good at keeping his emotions in check.

Yoongi wrestled with that thought for a moment, weighing it up in his mind against all the other things that he knew about how alphas were supposed to act - did any of this line up with that?

Then he was reminded that they were stood on opposite sides of a doorway, and that both of them clearly had things that they needed to be doing. He coughed. "Yeah, I’ve just got here," he said, taking a step forward to go inside the building. Namjoon let him, turning his body aside - and for the first time, Yoongi's conscious brain actually registered how big the other alpha actually was. He had known this already, of course, but in that moment, standing next to him, with his head coming up to Namjoon's shoulder... well, he felt inferior, in a way. He felt small, like he often did when around other alphas.

It triggered something in him - something deep inside his gut, like an explosion of emotion in the form of heat.

If only he could tell what it meant.

Anger, probably. "Excuse me," he said gruffly, when Namjoon hadn't quite left him enough space to get through.

The other stayed stiff, but did let him pass, at least. He didn't look at Namjoon's face as he went by. It would probably just make him feel more anger if he did, more of that weird explosion. That would probably be a bad thing, he thought.

He tried to not think about Namjoon any more for that day. He couldn’t afford to be distracted for the day over someone so insignificant.

He got on with the work that he’d come here to do. (He also made a mental note to not forget the code that he needed to know) It didn’t take him too long to get set up at his station, and get started with the song that he had been meaning to make for a while now.

And he definitely didn’t think about Namjoon while he was doing it. Nope.

**

Their days continued like that for about a week, in an odd sort of routine. It took a couple of days for Yoongi to realise that everything was continuing in an odd, groundhog day style thing, but each day’s routine played out pretty much the same – the only exception being that the only time he saw Namjoon was late at night, when the other boy would continue to work on his tracks way into the night.

At least, until one day. He got a text from an unknown number, which simply read '!!!'. He ignored it, thinking that it must have just been a wrong number, and that it must simply have been a mistake.

"Yoongi? It's a Saturday, you know you don't have to be in here, right?" Hyosang's head popped into the studio. Yoongi had learned that he was one of the producers, who had been away at the time that he had been shown around initially.

Yoongi shrugged. He didn't want to admit that the main reason was that he just didn't want to go back to the dorm, but that was still the main reason he was here. "I know."

"Well I think you should go have some time off. I know you've been working very hard this week, you should relax. You don't want to end up burning out before you get to the week where you do have to work."

Hyosang’s advice was solid, Yoongi couldn't fault it.

When Hyosang didn't leave, Yoongi realised that he was going to wait there until Yoongi actually packed up his things and left. He stood up slowly, picking up his phone from the desk. "Alright," he said awkwardly.

Hyosang smiled. "Good."

Collecting his coat on the way out, Yoongi began to depressedly think about what he could use to waste time at the dorm. If Namjoon was there it would severely limit what he could do - it wasn't like he could just sit in the bedroom, because that would almost certainly limit them to being awkward around each other.

Plus he didn't want to deal with the aftermath of spending too much time around Namjoon. It was never good.

He'd mostly gotten away with it by making sure to keep out of his way while in the apartment. Spending most of his time at the studio had been his main method for that, and it had worked pretty well.

He sighed. He could be doing with getting more groceries in. He didn't mind Namjoon using them, since he was buying them with the funds that BigHit gave him, but still, it would be nice to have at least some left for him sometimes. Even already, he knew that there would be even less in the cupboards than when he left, even though only half of the day had gone by.

It was only a little out of his way to go the grocery store, which was a good thing, at least. He picked up a basket, and went about getting what he thought they'd need - mostly essentials, like rice, and meats, things that were easy and quick to prepare.

He felt his phone buzz just as he was bending down to pick up a bottle of coke. Frowning, he straightened up, and pulled it out. It was a message from the same unknown number, again just sending exclamation marks. It didn't make any more sense this time, and Yoongi continued to ignore it - although this time it weighed a little more on his mind.

Just when he'd put enough in the basket that he knew it would be almost too much to carry it all back, he stopped. There were more things he could get, but it wouldn't be worth it overall, and he could always come back another time.

Going to pay for the groceries was almost another part of the autopilot that he seemed to be on whenever he thought about how his days went.

It didn't take long at all for him to get back home, climbing up those dingy stairs to the apartment. Pretty much every stair squeaked as he stepped on it, a combination of his weight and the weight of the groceries apparently being too much for it.

He had to put the bags down in order to get his keys out and in the lock. Even knowing now which key it was that he was looking for, he still sort of had a hard time of it, finding that his sore hands couldn’t quite grip it right.

As ever the apartment was quiet when Yoongi finally opened the door. Scooting his shopping bags along the floor, he let the door slam behind him, then checked to make sure that it was locked.

Expecting for Namjoon to be doing his own thing, and staying at his computer, Yoongi picked the things out of the bags that needed to go in the fridge, cradled them in his arms, and brought them through to the kitchen.

He stopped in his tracks. "What are you doing in here?" He said to the turned back he saw the moment he entered the kitchen.

Namjoon turned around. Immediately Yoongi could see how frazzled he looked. “Help,” he hissed intensely.

Yoongi blinked. "What?"

Namjoon took in a shuddering breath. "My mom is coming here," he said, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. "I - I just want her to think I’m happy here, you know?"

"I - yeah, I guess that makes sense?" Yoongi said. It was only... sort of a lie. He could see why Namjoon would want that - the only thing he didn't get was why the man was telling him.

Namjoon continued to stare at him desperately. He said nothing, but it was clear that there was something that he wanted Yoongi to understand -

"Oh - you want us to pretend to be friends? You..." Yoongi said, half not believing the words that had already come out of his mouth.

The relief coming off of Namjoon was palpable. "Yeah - do you think that - do you think..."

"Do I think I can do it?" Yoongi finished the sentence for him. he pretended to think about it for a minute, just to annoy him. "...Yeah, I guess so," he said eventually. It shouldn’t be too hard, right? Yoongi knew what being someone's friend was like, and it wasn't like they'd have to pretend to be besties or anything. He doubted that Namjoon was really capable of being someone's close friend anyway - he could probably get away with being a bit distant.

Namjoon rubbed a hand over his face. "Thank you," he said, voice muffled by his hand. "I don't - I don't think I could have faced telling her that I was having a hard time of it, you know?"

Yoongi nodded, finding that for once he fully agreed with that sentiment. "So how long do we have to prepare?" he asked. they should probably at least practice, or something...

Namjoon pulled out his phone, and appeared to check something on it. "Uuh - about ten minutes."

Yoongi's brain whited out. "Ten minutes?" He spluttered. "You expect me to be prepared to fabricate an entire friendship in ten minutes?

Immediately, Namjoon began to look guilty. "I know it's not long," he said, beginning to wring his hands, "but I didn't know she was planning on coming til about half an hour ago myself. I tried to text you about it, but -"

"Wait, that was you?" Yoongi interrupted, frowning.

"I - yeah, did I not...?" Namjoon seemed a little confused - and then he hit himself on the forehead with his own hand. "Right, I asked for your number earlier in the week for just in case I needed to contact you, and I meant to text you my number so you'd have it too, but I - I guess I forgot, huh?"

Yoongi nodded. He felt like he should care that this almost stranger had just gotten his number from the office of their shared company like it was no biggie, but... somehow he didn't, all that much. "It's okay," he said instead. Maybe it was just his sympathy for this situation bleeding through into his judgement and making it hard for him to know what was meant to be weird and what wasn't.

"I - I don't know what to do," Namjoon admitted, scratching his head. The immediate worry seemed to have left him, but it would seem that the leftovers were very much still there.

Yoongi leant his hip against the counter, and looked around. "Will your mom care about how messy this place is?" He asked. The kitchen had become a beacon of untidiness in the last week or so, and it was definitely the place that could do with the most of a clean.

Namjoon gave him a sheepish look. "I mean, she probably will, but she won't be surprised?" He said, making it sound like a question. "I don't..."

"Well if we're trying to make a good impression, we should get everything done that we can," Yoongi said firmly.

For once it was nice feeling like the one in charge. In comparison to how Yoongi often felt at the studio, being told that Namjoon was just so much better than him at every turn, he kind of liked being the one who had a clue what they should do right now. Not in a mean way. Okay, maybe a little in a mean way. Part of him still very much felt like Namjoon needed taking down a peg or two.

Directing Namjoon to the plethora of dirty plates and dishes that currently had permanent residency in their sink, they began a washing and drying operation. Initially Yoongi had said that he should be the one to put things away, and Namjoon could dry, but that... well, that failed once two glasses slid out of his hands in the slippery dishwater and smashed in the sink. Yoongi was just glad that they weren't his glasses.

Once they'd picked up all the pieces, they were well on their way to getting better at this. (The whole glasses thing had made Yoongi wonder if this was another thing which was wrong with the great boy wonder, and he kept an eye on Namjoon as he went on his mission to put everything back... well, not necessarily where it belonged, but somewhere out of sight at least.

Nothing else got dropped, but Yoongi stayed on edge anyway.

As Yoongi passed him the last plate, and pulled the plug in the sink, he found himself grinning at Namjoon automatically, a sign of a job well done between the two of them.

It was returned, somewhat hesitantly - and with a shock Yoongi remembered exactly who he was smiling at. The grin dropped off of his face pretty much immediately.

They didn't have time to address any of that though - since their buzzer let out its horrendous half chime half buzz.

"That'll be her," Namjoon said, running an anxious hand through his hair. "Uuh... can you spray some Febreze in here or something?"

Yoongi nodded before quite realising why Namjoon would be asking him that. Right - they were two alphas sharing the place, it was going to be ripe to anyone who wasn't them.

There was only a small amount of time he would have to do it in. He heard the sound of the front door closing as Namjoon left, and knew that it would only be the amount of time between Namjoon getting to the bottom of the stairs and back up again that he had.

And so Yoongi ran about frantically for a while while he tried to find the Febreze in the first place. He had been so sure that it had been in the bedroom, but he simply couldn't find it anywhere - before discovering that it was in the bathroom all along.

He could hear footsteps on the stairs outside already - and so, spraying frantically, he tried to get as much of their shared spaces smelling fresh as he could before they got there.

The door began to open - and Yoongi darted into the bedroom, spraying in there like his life depended on it.

"Things are a bit messier than I remember them being, Joon-ah," Yoongi heard coming from the entrance. It was an unfamiliar female voice, one which Yoongi could only assume was the voice of Namjoon's mom.

He swallowed. Squaring his shoulders up, he reminded himself that he was an alpha in this world, and that he shouldn't be afraid of anything. Especially not his friend's mom.

Taking a deep breath, he walked out. There was no sense in waiting for them to come to him.

He could hear the two of them talking, seemingly about the changes that Namjoon's mom had been able to see since Namjoon was last there. That seemed reasonable, at first, but then he remembered that that wasn't the purpose of her visiting.

"Hi," he said as he entered the room. Even over the overwhelming smell of Febreze, Yoongi could still smell Namjoon's alpha scent, cutting through every other smell like it always did.

In comparison, he didn't get the chance to smell his mom until she got closer. "Oh," she said, looking surprised. "I forgot that you said you had a new roommate again, Joon." She looked at him reproachfully, like it had been his fault for not reminding her about it. That was a bit strange, Yoongi thought.

Namjoon side eyed him. “Uh – yeah, sorry about that,” he said, shuffling a little closer. He patted Yoongi awkwardly on the shoulder, and Yoongi did his best to not do anything about that.

Seeming to put that out of her mind, Yoongi watched as Namjoon’s mom seemed to relax a bit. “So what do you boys get up to in your free time, then? I bet you’ve got loads in common.”

They shared a panicked glance. “We – well yeah, we both love music,” Yoongi said. He had tried to not let it sound as flat as it did in his head, but it came out a little like he thought it should be obvious.

Thankfully, Namjoon’s mom laughed. “Well of course you do,” she said. Without either of them prompting it, she took herself over to sit down on one of the sofas. “Now tell me all about that.”

Yoongi was surprised at the amount of detail that she wanted to know about their songs, and their process. He had expected her to be like his own mom – someone who barely cared for her child’s occupation, who just about tolerated that it was going on. Instead, he found that she knew the majority of the terminology that he was using.

He was also surprised at the ease with which he and Namjoon were able to describe things together. Despite having barely worked in the same room, they had a lot of the same opinions on what they got up to, and Yoongi found himself eagerly finishing Namjoon’s sentences.

For a moment, he even forgot that he had ever not liked Namjoon.

After Namjoon’s mom had interrogated them, she showed her true reason for coming here – to cook for them. Yoongi didn’t even know why he hadn’t seen that coming.

When he offered to help her, she seemed hesitant. Yoongi could understand that, knowing how bad Namjoon was in the kitchen.

But she took his help anyway – and it was pleasant, in the weirdest kind of way. To stand with a motherly figure, talking about life. Namjoon stood to the side of the room – he didn’t seem to like the newfound camaraderie that his mom and Yoongi had formed, but Yoongi found that rather amusing.

The amount of food that was made would surely be enough to feed them for a whole week. As they packed it away into the fridge, Yoongi was struck with the knowledge that he wasn’t going to have to cook at all for that time. It would be wonderful.

By the time that Namjoon was ready to take his mom downstairs, Yoongi was in a much better mood than he had been at the start of this. How he had managed to forget all about his animosity towards Namjoon was unclear, but even the alpha part of him wasn’t unhappy about this.

It was infuriating to realise that he did actually like Namjoon somewhat. Yoongi had laughed at all his jokes, had found that he did sometimes sound just like he did.

And it made him so mad.

So mad that he couldn’t bring himself to be angry at Namjoon.

“So what now?” Namjoon said, coming back from taking his mom downstairs. He ran a hand though his hair. “We could –“

“Whatever you like,” Yoongi said. Probably too quickly.

Namjoon grinned. “Great!”

**

The next morning, when Yoongi woke up, Namjoon was still at his computer.

That wasn't exactly an unusual sight, but it was strange at this hour of the morning. Yoongi blinked, and rubbed his eyes. Maybe he was misunderstanding what he was seeing?

But nope, no matter how many times he looked, Namjoon was still there. Had - had he been working all night?

Leaning over, Yoongi grabbed his phone. Its light was blinking at him, but he ignored the messages that he had, instead checking the time. It was the weekend still, which meant that he didn’t care so much about getting up at a normal person time, but it was already 11am.

He eyed the back of Namjoon's head dubiously. How could he stay up so long and still stay functioning?

Yawning, Yoongi levered himself out of bed. Based on the amount of crap that was still on the desk, his suspicions that Namjoon hadn't moved since Yoongi had gone to bed were only intensified. Creeping closer, he tried to get a good look without letting Namjoon know that he was there, and....

The other alpha's eyes were closed. As Yoongi got closer still, he realised that he could hear the way that his breathing was low and steady - and then they were interrupted by loud snoring.

It had never been the case that Yoongi had been awake while Namjoon was asleep - he didn't even know that he snored.

For the first time, Yoongi felt a little unsettled at the fact that he knew so little about his roommate.

Shaking that thought off for now, he found himself watching Namjoon as he slept. He looked so peaceful, so serene... so different from the way he acted while awake.

The more he looked, the more Yoongi realised that the way Namjoon was slouched couldn't be comfortable at all. He winced at the thought of waking up like that.

A second later, another realisation hit him. He could actually do something about that.

Reaching out a hand, he shook Namjoon shoulder a little. "Hey," he whispered. "Hey, you should move."

Namjoon's eyes didn’t budge. Yoongi shook him a little more.

Then, like a princess waking up from 100 years of slumber, Namjoon's eyelids fluttered a little, a small amount of eye peeking out shyly. "Let's get you somewhere more comfortable," Yoongi whispered.

Just awake enough to be able to follow Yoongi’s instructions, Namjoon stood up, shoulders slumped and eyes stull mostly closed. With an arm around Namjoon's shoulders, Yoongi did his best to support the man in his mostly-asleep state, letting him lean on him on the way over to the bed.

Managing to stop Namjoon from just flopping onto the bed right at the last minute, Yoongi kept as strong a grip as he could on his upper back. It allowed him to lower Namjoon onto the bed properly, and make sure that he didn't break anything. tucking his arms and legs in, and pulling the blankets over him, Yoongi considered it a job well done when he was all tucked in.

He smiled to himself as he did so. It felt nice to have done a good thing - and one which Namjoon wouldn't even remember, to boot. And, in a way, it felt like he was making up for the quiet things Namjoon had been doing for him.

(His father's voice whispered in his head that any weakness should be punished. For once, he ignored it.)

Turning the light out, he left the room quietly to let Namjoon sleep.

It almost felt strange to walk into the kitchen and have to make his own breakfast. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have allowed himself to get so used to having his breakfast made for him, but that would have involved actually talking to Namjoon about that.

He got his food out.

Having his breakfast by himself was much more familiar than anything else he had done this morning. There was some sort of semblance of normalcy in it.

He spent the rest of the day trying to keep quiet. He didn't even know why, because it wasn't like he cared about how much sleep Namjoon got - but he couldn't help but think about how bad he would feel if he accidentally woke Namjoon.

Maybe he couldn't go into the studio, but they couldn't stop him from thinking about what he was going to do in his own home. Fetching his lyric notebook (he had to tiptoe like crazy around their room to avoid waking Namjoon up), he proceeded to have his afternoon full so song writing.

Sitting in the living room, he'd made himself a little nook at the end of one of the couches that fitted him just perfectly.

"Yoongi?"

He jumped - he hadn't been listening to anything but the music in his head for several hours. He looked up to see Namjoon stood in the doorway, looking sleepily confused. His hair was sticking up in all directions, and one side of his face was covered in red lines. It was cute.

"Hey," he said, trying to temper those thoughts down. They were both alphas, he couldn’t afford to think those things.

"I - did I really sleep that long?" Namjoon asked, scrunching his nose up.

Yoongi nodded awkwardly. "Yeah... what time did you go to sleep?"

Namjoon appeared to think about this for a second. "You know, I can't remember," he said, laughing.

"Right." Yoongi said nothing about having moved Namjoon. That would just be too embarrassing.

He could never let Namjoon know that he had any kind of soft side. It just wasn’t done for alphas to do that.

**

“How are you?” Yoongi heard the voices coming from inside the studio. He slowed down his steps – he had been meaning to go in there and get on with the things he hadn’t been able to over the weekend, but if there were people in there already…? Well, he couldn’t just barge in there.

“I’m alright,” he heard the other voice say.

It was now that he realised that he recognised one of the voices. It was Namjoon – talking to someone that he didn’t recognise. It made him feel strange.

He didn’t know why it had made him feel odd – but neither did he know why he stayed stood there, listening to what they were talking about.

They continued to talk a little about the things that they’d been getting up to – most of which were things that Yoongi had already heard about already just though knowing Namjoon. Things about his work, and his tracks, and his interactions with their boss.

In other words, nothing particularly interesting.

Yoongi slumped against the wall. Should he get going?

No. No, he’d come here for a reason. It wasn’t his fault that Namjoon and his friend were using the room for things that had nothing to do with their work.

He stepped to the side, and opened the door.

Immediately, the two already in there swung around to face him. They stared at him blankly for a heartbeat.

Then Yoongi walked further in, and said, “I’m here to make some music, if that’s okay?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out so passive-aggressive, but it sort of did.

But he couldn’t take it back. Namjoon had stood up as soon as he said it, apologies already on his lips. “Oh, I’m sorry Yoongi, we didn’t mean to take up your space so much. We’ll leave now.” And the smile he shot him next let Yoongi know that he meant it.

The unknown intruder, the one who Yoongi hadn’t recognised, bowed a little on his way out. As he did, Yoongi could smell that he was a beta. That surprised Yoongi. Most alphas tended to not associate with betas – they were often seen as basically omegas, too lowly to be worth talking to, but not as useful as omegas.

It reminded Yoongi of all the times that he had ignored betas to hang out with other alphas like his dad wanted him to. Not that that had done him any good either – he had had to defend himself too much in those circles.

As he shut the door behind the both of them, he let out a long breath. He was going to have to sit in this room which smelled of another alpha and a beta for the next few hours, at least, and the idea didn’t appeal to him.

Still, he could try to ignore it as best as he could.

Yoongi hadn’t even had a real idea of what he was going to work on today. He felt a bit bad about kicking them out – but it just meant that he would need to work hard on something to make up for it.

Besides, if Namjoon had really wanted the studio for himself, he would have fought for it. That was what proper alphas did.

Later on that day, just as Yoongi was really getting into the groove of what he was working on, there was a knock on the door. He didn’t respond – he was too busy, they would understand.

They came in anyway.

From the moment that he saw the way that bang pd was looking, he knew that he wasn’t going to enjoy this conversation.

**

“Who do they think they are,” Yoongi grumbled, kicking his shoes off inside the door.

Namjoon poked his head out of the kitchen door. “What’s up?” he asked, eyes innocently wide.

Yoongi scowled – not at Namjoon, but at the situation in general. “I’m not too forceful, am I?” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and going closer to Namjoon.

Namjoon frowned. “I – what brought this on?” he asked.

The two of them walked into the kitchen – and Yoongi was surprised to see that there was actual cooking going on.

He didn’t want to have to admit what had happened – but with Namjoon still looking at him expectantly, he had to go ahead and do it. “They told me that I’m too alpha like,” he said, sighing. He avoided looking at Namjoon directly when he said it – it was weird to be told that those things were a bad thing.

When Namjoon said nothing, he looked up. He was sat looking at him with a cocked head, like he was considering something very carefully.

Then he sighed, and it made Yoongi nervous.

“I – yes, you are a bit forthright,” Namjoon said eventually. Yoongi’s heart sank – if even his friend thought that he was too much, then they must be right. “But!” Namjoon interjected, probably seeing Yoongi’s expression. “I think your heart is in the right place. You mean well, even if you go about it in the wrong way.”

He remembered the way that he had acted earlier. He had treated Namjoon like he was simply someone to get out of the way, someone who was standing in the way of his plans.

It made him feel too bad. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning away again.

“What?”

He heard Namjoon stand up behind him. he didn’t turn around though.

“Look,” Namjoon said. He even went so far as too touch Yoongi’s shoulder. It should have bothered him – yet it didn’t, not when it was imbued with such well-meaning kindness. “I know you’re used to being an alpha’s alpha. And I know that that can make life difficult for you. But things don’t have to be like that. You don’t have to listen to whoever told you that you have to be that alpha.”

Yoongi froze. It was a bold speech. Something Yoongi hadn’t considered before – at least, not for a while.

Not being someone who insisted on getting their way all the time. It would explain some of the way that Namjoon acted. Why he refused to mind the fact that Yoongi was in his space all the time.

Yoongi finally looked over his shoulder. Namjoon was sat closer than he was anticipating, right behind him. It was an unexpected thing, and he flinched away from it – and also from the bare-faced honesty in his expression.

“Thanks,” he said, standing up quickly. “I – thanks.”

Namjoon gave him another small smile as he walked away. It gave Yoongi the unsettling feeling that Namjoon knew something about him that he didn’t.

And he didn’t like that.

**

Yoongi woke up slowly. Waving a hand in the general direction of his phone, he blindly turned off his alarm, and slumped back into the mattress. It was another day of work – the shine had only somewhat rubbed off by now, although it was still definitely there.

He took another few minutes to snooze.

Then, when he remembered that his alarm would have gone off for a reason, he groaned, rolled over properly, and picked up his phone.

For a moment, he attempted to look at it with closed eyes. When he finally got around to opening them, he saw that he had several texts – not from friends, as was usual, but in this case from the studio, saying that they’d had an idea for a new project.

He groaned. Their last idea had been a terrible one – one which Yoongi had known wouldn’t work right from the start, but he’d had to go along with it anyway.

For a moment he thought about ignoring them. Pretending like he hadn’t checked his phone, and going back to sleep.

No. He picked his phone back up. Opening his messages, he sent a quick text back saying that he would be in soon. It was true enough – for a given value of soon.

Instead of hurrying, he took his time getting ready. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to whatever they were going to throw at him this time, so he procrastinated as much as he could bear to. Namjoon didn’t appear to be in – it made him worry that whatever it was that they had going on, that Namjoon was involved.

But there was only so long that he could put it off for. An hour after he had first gotten up, the house was much tidier than it had been, and he was somewhat awake. More than he would normally be when faced with a Monday morning.

Picking up his backpack, and his phone, and one of the books he’d been reading (just in case they made him sit around again), he headed out.

He honestly didn’t even pay attention to the journey any more. It was so familiar that he could do it entirely on autopilot, going around people and over road crossings while entirely unfocussed.

There was music playing in his head. there usually was – sometimes songs that already existed, sometimes ones which just came to him, fully formed. Those were the ones that Yoongi tried to get down in a physical form. The ones that he wanted to share with the world.

By the time he reached the studios, he was pretty sure he had a good first draft of a song down in his head. The lyrics weren’t perfect, but they’d do.

Opening the door to the place, while running through it in his head so that he wouldn’t forget, he didn’t even really look up.

And, for the second time, he nearly ran into Namjoon on the way in – this time, because the other alpha was just stood on the inside of the door, seemingly doing nothing.

Yoongi rocked on his heels, step forward aborted. “What are you doing?” He asked crossly, one foot in the doorway and one out.

Namjoon jumped at the sound of his voice. Spinning around, his eyes widened. “Yoongi!” He exclaimed. “You’re here!”

“I – yeah?” Yoongi said, not understanding. “Did they make you come here too?”

Namjoon blinked. “No?”

They stood there in an impasse for a moment. “Right, you should come in,” Namjoon said, stepping back. Gratefully, Yoongi stepped inside. It was warmer in there, and it didn’t have all the other… people.

Namjoon only seemed a little befuddled about what they were doing. He beckoned for Yoongi to follow him - not a strange request in itself, but given that the original message hadn't come from Namjoon, Yoongi was concerned that he might be needing to meet with someone else.

Any attempts to voice that concern to Namjoon fell flat, however. "Should I..." Yoongi tried to say as he trailed after Namjoon - and was entirely ignored. Or maybe Namjoon just didn't hear him. There was no way of telling.

"We're going to the studio," Namjoon said over his shoulder after they'd already turned in that direction. Yoongi didn't point that out.

Simply humming in response, Yoongi only got more and more suspicious as he noticed that nobody else seemed to be about. That was unusual - even in such a small company, there was usually at least one other person that you could see going about their day. Apparently not today, though.

When Namjoon opened the door to the studio, Yoongi could see that the computer was already on, opened to one of the music making programs. This was only getting stranger and stranger.

"What's going on?" Yoongi said, walking into the room behind Namjoon. The room was filled with the other alpha's scent - a clear sign that he had been in here for a while. It didn't have any negative effect on Yoongi, like it might have once upon a time - something he noticed passively, in the same way he might have noticed a beta's scent.

Namjoon turned around with a grin. "Okay, so," he began, "you know that song I’ve been working on for the past few weeks? Well -"

"No."

"I - what?" Namjoon said, having been caught short by Yoongi's interruption.

Admittedly, he hadn't meant for it to be so abrupt, but he really did have no idea what Namjoon was talking about. "I don't know about your project," Yoongi said, beginning to frown. "Is that what this is about? Your projects is why I’ve been called here?"

Namjoon blinked. "You mean you – oh, that explains what you were talking about at the door." He began to laugh. It made Yoongi feel a bit left out.

"What is it?" He asked stiffly, beginning to feel pheromones escape him with frustration.

"Sorry," Namjoon said through his giggles, "it's not you I’m laughing at. bang pd must have made it sound like he wanted you to come here for him when he messaged you, that's all. When they said they'd do it for me I didn't expect... I didn't expect for it to be so ineffective."

Right. That did sort of explain things. A bit. "So if that's why I’m here, are you going to go ahead and do it?" Yoongi said, finding himself actually sort of eager to hear what Namjoon had made. For all the time he'd spent in this place being told how good Namjoon was at what he did, he hadn't heard so much as a peep of any of it.

"Yes - yes, of course," Namjoon said, jolting into action. He went and pressed one button on the computer - it must have all been loaded up already. That made se-

Then the music began to play.

The music.

It was only an instrumental. There were no vocals, not even a backing track.

Namjoon stood in the centre of the room, hands awkwardly in front of him, twisting one of the rings he wore around one of his fingers. All earlier confidence gone, he looked so nervous for what Yoongi was going to say to him. How could Yoongi tell him that it was everything he had been striving to be able to make rolled up into one?

The track ended early - still unfinished.

"What do you think?" Namjoon asked, all nerves. "I know it's not done, but I’ve got some lyrics waiting approval, and if it all goes well bang pd said he'll let me put it on the internet."

Momentarily, Yoongi wondered how much of the confidence he had seen before was a front. He was reminded of how overconfident he had been when trying to sell his CDs, how he had had to make himself into someone else, almost. Had to pull on that persona of a pushy alpha to get anywhere. It was like a lightbulb moment – and the lightbulb was shining a new light on things.

He couldn't dwell on that for long though. Not when he needed to try to pretend like it hadn't changed his perspective on life and the universe.

"It was good," he said. He wanted so badly to shrug, and pretend like this was nothing. He couldn't, though. Even when he tried to, his muscles wouldn't obey him. It was like even his subconsciousness wasn't going to let him make things worse between them.

And, as he watched the way that Namjoon began to look embarrassed about it, he felt a lot of the animosity fading away from him.

**

Yoongi had only meant to head home for lunch. He hadn't brought anything with him today, and he couldn't be bothered spending more money when he had food sitting at home that could be eaten. He hadn't wanted to stop here for long during his lunch break - the longer he was here, the less time he would have to eat.

If he ran into Namjoon he would ask him if he wanted to eat with him - but he hadn't come across him, and so was planning on just leaving by himself.

And then it happened. Another life changing moment.

As he walked past the studio door on his way out. He heard the faint beats of the song Namjoon had showed him the other day, the sound seeping out from the supposedly soundproofed room. And then, over the top of it, a voice rapping.

The voice was strong, with good flow. It was deep, and impactful. It was... amazing.

And slightly familiar.

Yoongi pushed the door open, half already knowing what he was about to see.

There, in the middle of the room, with the makeshift recording booth around him, stood Namjoon, rapping his heart out.

It was sort of incredible.

And Yoongi couldn't take his eyes off of him.

It wasn't even that he was jealous, like he had been with some of the guys in his old crew. Their styles were so different - in a way that Yoongi could see even in the two minutes he'd been watching Namjoon - that he couldn't even begin to compare it.

It was probably the closest he'd got to a religious experience in a long time. And he had thought that just listening to the instrumental for this track was enough...

He hadn’t even realised that the track had stopped until Namjoon had already turned around and noticed him.

He stood there like a deer in headlights. He wasn’t supposed to have been in here, in someone else’s studio time. Namjoon also didn’t seem to know what to do, as he also stood there, looking but saying nothing.

“I – nice.” Yoongi’s words didn’t want to come out.

Namjoon’s cheeks began to redden. “Thanks,” he choked out.

“Uh – I’ll leave you too it,” Yoongi said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be out of here.

“Oh – you don’t have to –“ Namjoon began to say, taking a single step in Yoongi’s direction.

Yoongi shook his head. There was no way he could stay in here, not when he had barged in on something that probably wasn’t finished yet. And, not when he didn’t know how he felt about having heard Namjoon’s rapping. “I should,” he said.

Before Namjoon could say anything more, Yoongi turned tail and fled.

He stood outside the door for a moment, leaning against the wall. It didn’t take much time more before the music started up again. Well, at least Namjoon hadn’t been too disturbed by his barging in there.

When he made his way home, he resolved to not talk to Namjoon about it. Even the idea of mentioning how awkward it had been made him cringe internally.

But then that sort of changed.

He couldn’t help but have the sound of Namjoon’s rapping echoing around his head for the next few days. He found it running round and round his thoughts at seemingly random times – when he was showering, when he was eating, when he was trying to sleep -

It was almost impossible to get away from it.

And, in itself, he found himself thinking about Namjoon more, too.

He had already known that Namjoon had songs online already – and when he searched up runch randa, there were plenty of videos available.

(He spent more time listening to them that he was proud of. There was something hypnotic about the rhythm of the lines, that made him want to keep going and keep going.)

If he had thought that he respected Namjoon before that happened, it had only increased so much more after seeing the man doing his thing.

Every time he saw Namjoon, it came to mind. Whether Namjoon realised that or not was unclear, but… in some ways it didn’t change his mental image of Namjoon at all. If anything it just added to it.

Whether that was a good thing was another thing entirely.

**

“Do you want to go out tonight?”

Yoongi looked up at Namjoon. “I – I don’t know?” he said. “Where were you thinking of going?”

He hadn’t even thought about anything like that since he’d got here. He’d spent so long with no friends here that he hadn’t even thought that it would be worth it to try going out.

Namjoon shrugged. “My friends told me about a new place they found a few weeks ago. They said it was good, so I thought I’d go along and check it out.” He paused. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

Yoongi was quick to shake his head. “No, no, I’ll come,” he said. He and Namjoon hadn’t spent that much time together outside of their work, or even outside of their apartment.

Besides – he was beginning to feel like he could be doing with something to help him unwind from work.

Namjoon grinned. “Great!” He said. “I was thinking we could head out at 7ish?”

Yoongi nodded eagerly. “Awesome!” He said. “I can’t wait.”

Namjoon wandered off after this, and Yoongi went back to what he had been doing before.

Too late, Yoongi remembered that he’d been meant to skype his friends tonight for the first time, to really get a good conversation about everything they needed to catch up on. His excitement faded a little – mixed too much with guilt. How had he forgotten about the plans he already had?

Instinctively, he stood up to go tell Namjoon that he’d made a mistake, that he couldn’t go tonight after all.

Then he paused. Why couldn’t he cancel the skype call instead?

The guilt hit him again. He’d barely talked to those friends in all the time he’d been here, and he probably owed them something more than occasional messages that he sent when he remembered to.

But he couldn’t deny that he’d much rather go out tonight, either.

His hand hovered over his phone. It would be so easy to send that message…

He bit his lip – and went ahead and sent the message.

‘Hey guys, sorry but somethings come up and I won’t be able to talk tonight’

So noncommittal. So casual. Like it was almost accidental that he was going to have to miss out on their plans.

Unable to face seeing what their replies were going to be, he put his phone away for a bit.

By the time night came, Yoongi actually found himself excited. Most of his experience with clubs and the like had been to do with the underground rap scene – but still, he thought it would be fun.

“Are you going to be ready soon?” Namjoon asked, sauntering into the bedroom.

Yoongi jumped. “Uh – yeah, I just need to get changed,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Cool,” Namjoon said, walking in further, “me too.”

He began to rifle though the hordes of clothes that he had – and Yoongi realised that he should probably be doing the same if he wanted to actually be able to leave at the same time as him.

Had he actually packed anything club worthy? He began to panic a little as he searched though his bag – it really hadn’t been something that he had taken into consideration when he was packing, and he was beginning to regret that right now.

“You good, man?”

Yoongi looked up to see Namjoon looking at him, three shirts held in one big hand, concern written all over his face.

“I’m… fine,” Yoongi said, looking down at his own sparse offerings. “I’m just not sure…”

“Do you want to borrow some of mine?” Namjoon looked so earnest that for a moment Yoongi found himself seriously entertaining the idea.

Then Yoongi remembered their height difference. “No, that’s okay,” he said, slightly disappointed. He highly doubted that he would be able to fit in anything that size.

Namjoon deflated. “Oh, okay.”

They awkwardly went about their changing after that. The atmosphere was slightly different – like Yoongi had rejected Namjoon, and it was making him feel guilty about it.

But it was the right thing to do. Eventually he came across one semi-formal shirt, crumpled at the bottom of his bag. It honestly didn’t even look like something that he had put there when he was packing to come here – he sort of suspected that it might have been left over from the last time he used the bag.

But an iron later, and it was looking… well, not good as new, but at least presentable. Namjoon gave him a questioning look when he saw him doing it – but since Yoongi saw him doing the same not long after, he figured it probably hadn’t looked that weird.

The rest of the evening mostly involved realising that they’d spent too long on their clothes and that they were late already. (The explanation was that they didn’t want to turn up too late to get into the club.)

And then by the time they were actually on their way, they had to hurry, and there was pretty much no talking.

They were halfway through the walk to the club when Namjoon stopped, frowning. “What is it?” Yoongi asked, confused.

“My phone…” Namjoon said, pulling the offending device up. Now that it was out in the air, Yoongi could hear the way that it was buzzing – clearly Namjoon was the man of the moment.

They spent a minute stopped in the middle of the pavement, people streaming around them, while Namjoon checked his phone. It seemed to take a while, whatever it was that he was having to do – but Yoongi stayed patient. It was probably none of his business.

Namjoon looked up when he was done. “Sorry about that,” he said, beginning to look guilty. “I know that this evening was meant to be about us, but would you mind if one of my friends came with us?”

Well that hadn’t been what Yoongi was expecting Namjoon to say. He shook his head in surprise – and realised his mistake a moment later when Namjoon’s face fell. “No, no,” he said quickly, “it’s fine, don’t worry about it?”

“Are you sure? It does mean we won’t be able to go to the alpha only section.” Namjoon bit his lip.

Without even thinking about it too much, he put an arm around Namjoon’s shoulder. “I’m sure,” he said firmly.

Namjoon fully beamed at him. it caught Yoongi off guard – he hadn’t seen the other alpha show such strong positive emotion in the whole time he had known him. It was almost unsettling – and yet Yoongi couldn’t deny that he liked seeing it. “Thank you!” He said.

And then he turned back around like he had done nothing unusual.

Yoongi was left to also try to pretend like he hadn’t been caught off guard by any of it. He followed Namjoon as he continued to walk away.

It didn’t take them too long to get to the club after that. Most of it was spent with Yoongi blindly following Namjoon to the club, with mounting anticipation and nerves. The streets were full, and even if they had wanted to talk, it would have been very difficult.

But when they did, there was an immediate change in dynamic. Namjoon’s friend was waiting for him outside, and Yoongi realised that from this moment on her was going to be the odd one out.

Yoongi hung back while they greeted each other. There were hugs all round, and Yoongi couldn’t help but compare the fact that he and Namjoon clearly weren’t that close yet.

“…and this is the other trainee that I work with,” he heard Namjoon say. Yoongi looked up from where he had been examining the floor. Namjoon was looking expectantly up at him, and Yoongi realised that he was meant to say something.

“Hi…” he said, awkwardly waving his hand.

Namjoon’s friend smiled at him – and then turned back to Namjoon.

They continued to talk as they walked into the club. It would almost have been fun, apart from the part where Yoongi wasn’t a part of the conversation.

Immediately, the other two headed straight for the bar. Yoongi was okay with that – if they’d wanted to start dancing immediately, his cover would have been blown.

“I’m going to go dance,” Namjoon’s friend announced not long later. It left Yoongi and Namjoon alone together – and for a minute they just sat there, holding their drinks and – on Yoongi’s part – trying to think of what to say.

“Did – did you not want to go join him?” Yoongi asked eventually.

Namjoon blinked at him (but that might just have been the laser that got shone into his eye). “I – not right now, no,” he said. It was hard to tell in the low lighting, but he looked uncomfortable in his seat.

“Then why did you want to come?” Yoongi asked, frowning. If they weren’t going to do anything in the club, when what point was there in being here?

“I’m really not one for the dance floor,” Namjoon admitted sheepishly. “I only suggested we go because I thought that it would be a good way to finally spend time together. And I – I guess I felt like because we make music like this that you’d also enjoy being surrounded by it?”

Yoongi stared at him. Suddenly the condensation on his glass felt very cold, the music thumping throughout the bar very wild. “I thought the same about you,” he blurted out. the words ‘you just seemed so cool’ ran through his mind, but went unsaid.

Namjoon snorted into his drink. “We’re a pair of messes, aren’t we?”

Yoongi grinned in response.

Somehow they got onto the topic of what Yoongi had got up to before he came to Seoul. It was almost embarrassing, now for him to admit that he had been much less successful than he knew he could be, but it was wonderful how well they ended up getting on.

After they’d spent a while talking, Namjoon seemed to gain more confidence than he had before. “You won’t mind if I go out there, will you?” He sounded actually nervous about it, and Yoongi hoped that it wasn’t him making him nervous.

“No, no, go have fun,” he said, jealous surprisingly absent. He smiled at Namjoon and his friend, and made shooing motions. He hoped he’d made it clear already that dancing really wasn’t going to be his thing.

With a smile in response, Namjoon disappeared away into the crowds.

For a while, Yoongi was entirely preoccupied with his phone. Nobody approached him, which made him happy – he didn’t even need to put out a stupid amount of pheromones to stop drunk alphas who assumed that he was an omega from hitting on him.

By the time he’d finished his drink, he figured he should leave it there for now. The company might have been lenient enough to allow them to go out every so often, but it wouldn’t do to push it and come back hammered.

He turned around on his stool, mostly just to check that Namjoon was doing alright. He wasn’t hopeful that he was actually going to be able to spot his friend from where he was perched, but it was worth a look (and if he couldn’t see him, then oh well – he wasn’t going to move from here until he needed to leave).

There sure were a lot of people there. In fact, Yoongi ended up wondering whether a significant amount more people had arrived in the time he’d been facing the other way. It wasn’t actually all that unlikely, given how little he’d been paying attention.

There was too much going on with the low lighting and various flashing colours for Yoongi to be able to get a grasp on who was there and who wasn’t.

He was still grateful for his slightly elevated position. It let him see over the heads of those in the  club, and he would get a good view of Namjoon when he saw him.

Almost having given up, Yoongi thought that he was never going to get the chance to see Namjoon enjoying himself. He had even seen Namjoon’s friend, dancing in between two slender, female omegas – and it irritated him. He looked at the side of the room, giving his eyes a rest form searching – and that was when he saw him.

He was stood with another man. At first it looked like they were just talking, having a casual conversation. Yoongi didn’t recognise him, but that didn’t mean much, when Namjoon knew so many more people here than he did. But then he saw just how close they were standing, and the way that their heads were bent close together.

It… looked very much like Namjoon was flirting. With another alpha.

Yoongi swallowed heavily.

That was something new that he’d not expected.

The more he watched, the more he realised that he was being a bit creepy. Maybe he didn’t need to see Namjoon finding someone – but, even in his slightly-tipsy state, he couldn’t take his eyes off of them.

It didn’t take very long before they were kissing.

Yoongi didn’t’ know why he hadn’t been expecting that. It just confirmed what he had been expecting – that Namjoon had been flirting.

It made him feel some kind of way, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

Maybe it was just being in that moment, watching the passion that Namjoon put into kissing the other alpha, but it almost felt like jealousy.

By the time Namjoon was ready to leave – sans the alpha he had been kissing – Yoongi didn’t feel in the mood to talk too much.

Thankfully, Namjoon didn’t seem to notice. He talked about music the entire way home – something about a track he’d just had an idea for, and Yoongi was content to just listen to him.

It was nice.

**

The morning after the night they went clubbing, Yoongi told himself that he way he had been feeling was just a fluke. Just a trick of the alcohol, the atmosphere making him think weirdly, making him feel strange. He definitely wouldn't be doing that again.

All of this was thought to himself, in his head, right after he woke up. It was like a mantra he made for himself - 'I will be normal, I will be normal, I will be...'

After the voice in his head turned into his fathers, he opened his eyes, and told himself that he was fine, that he could do it. He didn't need his father coming into any other parts of his life right now, not when he'd managed to ruin enough already.

The first thing he saw was Namjoon, in his own bed across the room. The floor was surprisingly clean after they'd moved all their shit while getting dressed the other day - it meant he could really get a good look at him.

As was usually the case, he'd managed to completely wreck the tidy bed he'd made yesterday. The duvet was all rumpled up, and half draped into the floor. Even from a sideways angle, Yoongi could tell that Namjoon was starfishing again, like he usually did, limbs poking out from under the duvet in all directions.

This time, his legs were visible - and Yoongi’s eyes were drawn to the long swathes of brown skin that were there. They were irresistible - some small part of Yoongi wanted nothing more than to go and touch them. He could only imagine how soft they would feel under his fingers, how much flesh there would be to grip -

Namjoon let out a loud snore. Yoongi was pulled entirely from his thought process. Why had he even been thinking like that to begin with? This was another alpha - something he was very aware of as soon as he moved and had the pungent smell of alpha shoved down his nose again.

Even with that reminder, Yoongi couldn't stop looking. It was just like last night - only worse, because this time Namjoon was vulnerable right now.

Feeling the urge to get up and escape, Yoongi fled to the bathroom. At least here he would be safe from any tempting bodies.

He looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was sticking up every which way, and there was a sheen of sweat, wet and dry, covering his visible skin. It was sort of gross - and he decided that it would be a good idea to hop in the shower.

Hoping that there would be enough hot water at this hour (he didn't know exactly what the time was, but he knew that it was much later than when he usually showered) he turned the shower on. He slumped against the side of the shower as he waited for it to warm up. Perhaps he should have gone back to sleep earlier - it seemed like he had even less energy than he thought, and apparently just standing up was using up a lot of it.

After nearly falling asleep standing up, he managed to shake himself awake, and clamber into the shower. The water was blessedly warm against his back, and he allowed himself to close his eyes again and just enjoy it. The feeling of becoming clean again was such a nice one after feeling so gross.

His thoughts began to wander - how much time he should spend at the studio next week, a new idea for a beat on a song he'd been working on, what Namjoon's legs would look like if he was laid out in front of him...

Wait, that part wasn't usual?

Nope, he wasn't supposed to be thinking about any of that. It was forbidden, taboo.

Opening his eyes resolutely, he picked up the soap. He must just still be caught up in the emotions of last night. Maybe giving himself a good clean would help him to get his thoughts in better order.

He rubbed the bar of soap vigorously all over his body, getting all the places that had sweated too much in the club last night. He didn't think about anything other than being clean - that was the priority right now.

It was when the soap began to sting that he realised he'd been scrubbing a bit too hard, making his skin pink and raw in places. He put it down on the ledge, and just stood there for a minute, head down, watching the suds flow off of him and down the drain.

Down and down the water went, all going the same way.

Namjoon's body, naked and wet, with him in the shower. those legs trembling, the warm water splattering over his swollen knot -

Yoongi gasped, and turned the water to cold.

The frigid water did little to stop his mind from working, even if it managed to cool down his overstimulated body. Getting out of the shower in the hopes that maybe that would stop him, he quickly dried himself, using the towel roughly as a way to distract himself.

Namjoon was an alpha, Yoongi reminded himself. Just because Namjoon was attracted to other alphas that didn't mean that he had to copy him.

Yes, that must be what it was, Yoongi realised. He slowed down with the towel. He had seen Namjoon flirting with that alpha earlier, and it had gotten him confused. It was the obvious solution.

All he had to do was to wait it out. The feelings would fade - they had to.

For the rest of the day, Yoongi did his best to seem normal. It wouldn't do to let Namjoon know that there was anything wrong - so he let Namjoon cook, just for a change, and he even pretended like what he had made was edible.

They watched videos of other rappers and made notes on what they liked (the internet truly was an amazing place), and they even came up with an idea for a new song that they wanted to pitch to bang pd when they next saw him.

The doubts that Yoongi had had when he first arrived here seemed so far away from his current reality. Even the period where he had thought that Namjoon was someone to hate seemed distant.

By comparison, his old crew seemed like people he had never really been friends with. He had barely thought about them ever since he'd had to cancel on them - and even then, he didn't feel that bad about it. Had they ever had times like this? he didn't think they had.

When they fell asleep in the same bed by accident, Yoongi couldn’t bring himself to move them to sleep separately. He wasn’t even bothered by the snoring – he was used to it.

**

The next day Yoongi woke to Namjoon's face right above his. It was almost scary, but in a good way? He didn’t jump – that would have been too dramatic – but he did blink in confusion, which led to some intense staring at one another.

Eventually, Yoongi asked, “what are you doing?”

To which Namjoon replied, “just looking.” And then he straightened up, and walked away. Yoongi was left even more confused than he had been before.

He mostly forgot about the incident during the course of the day – he had work to be getting on with, and he couldn’t really afford to be thinking too much about anything else.

And then he remembered what he had dreamed about the last night.

He felt all the blood in his body rush to his face. The images of Namjoon’s legs had apparently gotten to him a little too much – and the shower imaginings from yesterday had worked its way into his unconsciousness.

He’d had that dream last night.

When he was sleeping in the same bed as Namjoon.

The idea that maybe Namjoon’s weirdness this morning might have been a result of his possible actions while he was asleep was horrifying.

He laid his head in his arms in deep, stomach churning embarrassment. No, no, no, not Namjoon thinking that he was some kind of pervert –

A knocking at the studio door. He didn’t lift his head. mostly people would assume that the place was in use, and so wouldn’t come in. there was no point in going to answer it, not when he was busy wallowing.

Naturally, the door opened. “Yoongi?” the one person he didn’t want to see right now. “Yoongi, are you okay?”

Knowing that he was going to look like he was sick or something, Yoongi raised his head. the cool air washed over it pleasantly – and then he turned to actually look at Namjoon. “Yes?”

To his credit, Namjoon didn’t react at all. “It’s 3 – we’re meant to start working on that new track?”

Shit, the man was right. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Yoongi sat up properly, not acknowledging the colour of his face. The track he had been working on before the reveal of his own depraved mind was still up on the screen, and he closed it down and brought up the other one. While he did that, Namjoon was busy bringing the other chair up to the desk so that they could sit together.

That was normal, as things went. Yoongi turned his chair a little, so that he was angled towards Namjoon – and found himself instinctively leaning away. He tried to look Namjoon in the face, and found that some subconscious part of him really didn’t want to, because his eyes wouldn’t look higher than his chin.

The embarrassment was still inside him, hot and ugly, swirling his stomach into cotton candy which was then shredded into pieces.

He tried his best to listen to what Namjoon was telling him. He really did. But every time Yoongi looked at his face all he could see was Namjoon writhing in pleasure, every time he looked downwards he saw his bare legs, sensually half-concealed under the duvet.

It was inescapable.

How was he ever meant to get over this?

By the time the session was over, Yoongi wasn’t sure that he had understood anything of what Namjoon had suggested. He spent too much time trying to not blush too hard in front of him – which, while necessary, wouldn’t help him with work.

“So what do you think?” Namjoon asked. He turned to Yoongi expectantly – and Yoongi panicked.

“I have to go now,” Yoongi announced. He still couldn’t look at Namjoon, and so he busied himself with picking up his bag, and gathering his things.

“Oh – okay.” Namjoon sounded entirely fine with that. It made Yoongi’s chest tighten, and he didn’t know why. What had he been expecting, for Namjoon to beg him to stay?

Yoongi coughed. “Bye,” he muttered.

Maybe some of the others saw him rushing out of the building, but he couldn’t stand to think about that right now.

**

It was much easier for Yoongi to get to grips with it by himself. The day after, he went back to the studio to get actual work done.

Luckily, Namjoon hadn’t been lying when he said that he’d written down most of what they ‘discussed’ the other day. It made it so easy for him to get to grips with what he needed to, and he began to pull up all of the files that he was going to need.

They seemed pretty normal, and even though he was going through Namjoon's files it all seemed pretty well organised.

Then he noticed another folder labelled 'things3'. Well that seemed strange.

Curiosity piqued, he clicked on it. Inside were a myriad of files, some .mov, some .mp3. Each of them was simply named with a string of numbers - an odd choice. These were probably more of his songs, Yoongi realised. What else could they be?

Maybe some of them were ones that hadn't been released....

He couldn’t resist. Even though these were clearly something private, Namjoon would never have to know that he had looked at them.

He clicked on the first one, which was one of the mp3 files.

It started with silence. Yoongi frowned. What –

The sound of moaning echoed loudly out the speakers.

Yoongi clicked off the file so fast that he thought he might have broken the mouse.

Porn??

With hesitant hands, hoping that he was going to be proven wrong, Yoongi clicked on the first video file. When vcl opened it, it asked if he wanted to go to where 'he' had left off. He clicked okay.

It skipped ten minutes into the video - and, almost without warning, the image of two bulky, muscular men, fully naked, filled the screen. One was on top of the other, and yet in a rather unrealistic way, there was enough space between them for the viewer to see their dicks well as their hands grappled for them.

All of that was seared into Yoongi's retinas before he had the chance to close it. Just that one shot was enough to tell Yoongi everything he needed to know. Namely, that Namjoon had a whole folder of porn on the shared computer.

Moreso - Yoongi was absolutely sure that the two men were alphas. He wasn't going to go back and check, but he was sure that they were too big to be anything else.

He couldn’t have been more wrong about what he was going to see.

Carefully closing the folder, Yoongi tried to get on with what he had been meant to be doing. Admittedly, it was going to teach him a lesson about snooping, but...

Now that he knew that this was something that Namjoon did in here, he couldn't help but imagine Namjoon sat in this very chair, maybe right after Yoongi had been in it, bringing himself off to the sight or sound of this porn. He would only unzip his trousers, it being too dangerous to risk pulling them off all the way, and he would need to stay quiet to avoid being caught.

It was a tantalising image.

It stuck with him the entire time that he tried to get on with his work. Like the other times in which he had gotten Namjoon stuck in his head, it flashed up at random times, making him need to close his eyes and breathe deeply. He hadn't going to give in, he wasn't going to risk doing the same thing himself.

He did have work to be getting on with.

And he didn't want to confront this... this attraction.

Not yet.

**

"Yoongi?"

Yoongi turned around in his chair. He had asked Namjoon earlier if he could use his computer to do some work that he hadnt done earlier, and he had been expecting for Namjoon to come steal it back from him anytime soon. "Do you want me to leave? I’m nearly done with this, I swear..."

Namjoon shook his head. "No, that's not it," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I - there was something I wanted to talk to you about."

Yoongi frowned. This was sounding much more serious than just him using a computer. Had Namjoon noticed the way that he had been staring at him? Because he was sure that he had been pretty subtle this whole time, and there was no way Namjoon should have noticed anything out of the ordinary. "Sure, what is it?" He asked, trying to hide the fact that he was beginning to sweat.

Namjoon took a seat on the bed so that they were on the same level.

"I know you - you're not like me," Namjoon began, twisting his fingers round and round each other. "I know I probably don’t have a chance at all, and you're not interested in alphas at all, but I have to ask - will you go on a date with me?"

Yoongi stopped breathing.

With one hand he reached over and pinched the skin of his other arm.

Ow.

Nope, this was still reality.

Namjoon watched him with a bemused air, like he wasn't sure what Yoongi was doing. "Are - are you okay?"

Honestly that was understandable, since Yoongi himself barely knew what was going on. "I think so," Yoongi replied. The more he moved his head around, the more sure he was that this was a dream. Nothing felt entirely real - and it would go a good way to explaining why the alpha he'd been dreaming about for the past month had just asked him out.

"Then - is your answer no? Because if it is I’ll understand," Namjoon said, a slight mad look coming into his eye. Yoongi was sure that he knew what he was doing either. "There's no pressure, I’ll understand if you don't want to. I mean - I don't even know what I thought I was doing asking you to begin with - of course you're straight, I should never have -"

"Yes."

That stopped Namjoon from rambling

"You - what?" the wide eyes and the reddened cheeks let Yoongi know just how surprised Namjoon was by this turn of events.

Yoongi nodded, keeping his head down. "I’ll go on a date with you," he said, his voice quiet.

"Great," Namjoon said, his voice a little too loud. It very much felt like he was trying to compensate for Yoongi. He didn't know whether he appreciated that or not

With a grin that was too wide to bear, Namjoon leaned forward and pulled Yoongi into a hug. It was the first real one that they'd shared, and with the closeness came the reaffirmation that Namjoon was an alpha.

A year ago that would have been enough to turn Yoongi off him.

Not today though - today Yoongi revelled in it, knowing that this was what he had wanted for a while, and he pulled Namjoon all the closer for it.

Boldly, he kissed Namjoon on the cheek, and let him go.

"I'll see you later," Namjoon said as he pulled away. "I've got to go back to the studio for a while." His expression was apologetic, but Yoongi didn't mind.

"Okay," he said.

Even as Namjoon walked out of the door, Yoongi wasn't entirely convinced that he hadn't just dreamed up this whole sequence. Nor was he sure that Namjoon quite believed that he'd gotten the answer that he wanted.

He had to believe that it would be good for both of them, though.

Maybe one day Yoongi would admit the amount of time that he had spent fantasising about Namjoon - but that wouldn't be today. maybe when they knew each other better, when it wouldn't border on inappropriate to tell him.

For now it would have to remain a mystery to Namjoon why he agreed.

**

Epilogue

Hoseok looked at the door to the dorm nervously. He had fantasised about this moment for months, but… that didn’t stop him from feeling butterflies right now.

Hands too full to get his keys out, and too fearful that they would shake if he did try to open the door himself, he knocked instead.

There was a pause – and then the door was wrenched open.

Immediately a very strong smell of alpha was blasted in his face. There was no mistaking it – the alphas who lived here had been living together for a long time. Well, to be fair he had been told that the two other trainees had been working here for a while. It would make sense that they would have marked their territory now.

“What?” A gruff voice asked. Instinctively, Hoseok looked up, expecting to see a tall alpha ready to punch him for invading his territory.

There was nothing there. He looked down a little - and there was a man stood there, in his boxers, looking about ready to fight him. Momentarily Hoseok was fooled into thinking that maybe he wasn't one of the trainees, that maybe he was a member of the staff.

And then the pheromones that he was giving off reached him - yep, there was no doubt that he was an alpha.

But, the strange thing was, his scent was mixed with the scent of another alpha. It was almost indistinguishable, like they had spent a significant amount of time in very, very close proximity to one another. what, did they wrestle or something?

The sound of a throat clearing brought him back to himself. The man looked about as impatient as he had when he opened the door, and it brought all of Hoseok's nerves back.

"Uh - I’m the newest trainee?" He said, gesturing at the three suitcases behind him. He also held up his keys as proof that he hadn't been trying to break in or anything.

The man stared at him suspiciously for a moment longer, during which Hoseok felt like his soul was being stared at.

"Alright," he other man said with a sigh. Gratefully, Hoseok turned to grab all his things, an promptly remembered that there were too many of them to carry at once.

He stared at them, trying to decide which ones he should take first, and which one he should leave out here unattended.

His thoughts were disturbed by movement to the side of him. He looked up to see the other man there, who went ahead and took the handles to the two heavier suitcases, and pulled them into the apartment like it was nothing.

Right. Alpha strength. The man had said nothing, and so Hoseok assumed that he should bring the last one, and he dragged it inside, scurrying after the other. He closed the front door behind them. Immediately, everything felt so much more official. He was in the place that he was going to spend the next few years living. That was meant to be exciting, right?

(Instead all that was inside of him was nerves. He sort of felt like he was going to throw up - but maybe that was the strong smell of alpha, something he was unused to, turning his stomach.)

The next thing he knew, there was the sound of wheels trundling on the floor. He looked towards it – all three of his suitcases were being wheeled away towards the other side of the apartment.

Hoseok had barely had time to look around the living space he was in before he needed to go chasing his things.

“This is the bedroom,” the still-stranger said. He was stood in the doorway of it, looking in. It sort of made it difficult for Hoseok to see in himself, and he had to stand right behind him awkwardly in order to do so.

“Right,” Hoseok said. He could see a lot of mess – it would seem that the other trainees hadn’t made much of a priority of cleaning for when he got here – and it looked like there were two beds in there. “Uh – I think management said something to me about there being bunkbeds to fit all of us in here?” He worded it like a question, but he’d literally just come from his briefing. That was pretty much exactly what they’d said.

The other blinked at him. “Yeah, about that,” he said, dragging Hoseok’s suitcases behind him into the room. He didn’t get very far before the amount of crap on the floor made it impossible to keep dragging them.

It did nothing to explain to Hoseok what was going on, though. Nothing became clearer.

The other turned to face Hoseok when he seemed to realise this too. “By the way, I’m Yoongi,” he said, almost like an afterthought.

“Hoseok,” Hoseok replied, wondering where Yoongi was going with… any of this.

Yoongi seemed to take a second to look around him. “We should probably clear up, huh?” He said.

Hoseok nodded. Then, despite Yoongi’s previous statement sounding a lot like a general one, he bent down and began to pick up some of thing things immediately at his feet – mostly clothes, really.

Oh – it was going to happen right now.

Hoseok didn’t know whether he was meant to help tidy or not. None of these things were his, and he didn’t’ know where they’d be meant to go. But at the same time, he didn’t like the feeling of just standing there uselessly either.

There wasn’t much of a choice about it, though. Finishing up, Yoongi didn’t seem to be too bothered by the fact that he hadn’t tried to help. That was a good sign.

“So what part is mine?” Hoseok asked. Maybe there was another bedroom here somewhere where the bunkbeds were?

Yoongi stared at him. “That part,” he said, pointing a hand across the room. Hoseok tried to see what Yoongi was seeing that he wasn’t.

Then he noticed that the bed on that side only had a sheet on it. It was entirely stripped. Maybe Hoseok had initially taken it for being in the wash, but no. “Wait, that one’s mine? For my stuff?” He said, glad that he’d thought to bring some bedding with him (and by that he meant he was glad that his mum had thought to remind him about it).

Yoongi stared at him like he had two heads. “Yeah, it’s yours,” he said. Then he swung Hoseok’s suitcases round, one by one, so that they were closer.

Hoseok could take a hint. He began to unpack as best as he could. It wasn’t easy when he didn’t have a lot of space, and when it was unclear where most of his things were meant to go, but at least they weren’t cramped into his suitcases any more.

The sounds of more things being moved came from behind him, but he told himself that he didn’t need to look. There was no need for him to watch Yoongi moving his things so that he could move in. and he definitely didn’t need to help.

Instead he tried to focus on the strong smell of alpha that was coming from this bed. The sheets smelled clean, but there was no mistaking the fact that for a long time, an alpha had been the one to primarily use this bed. It was a little stale, like maybe it hadn’t been used in a couple of weeks, but it was definitely still there.

And, most confusingly, the scent was almost certainly Yoongi’s.

When he realised this, Hoseok turned to look at Yoongi almost without realising it. His new roommate had cleared a path, at least, which let him get somewhat near the other bed. It could even almost be considered tidy – just.

“Do you need a hand?” The words were out of Hoseok’s mouth almost before he realised it.

Yoongi straightened up and looked at him. he almost looked surprised. “No, that’s okay,” he said, “I’m pretty much done.” It didn’t look done, but Hoseok wasn’t going to question it.

“So – so if this is my bed, is that one yours?” Hoseok asked. It didn’t really gel with what he’d already noticed, but he wasn’t going to question it. Maybe he was swapping beds for some reason.

Maybe it was the low light, but to Hoseok it sort of looked like Yoongi was blushing. “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said.

He turned away. It couldn’t be because of embarrassment – Yoongi seemed far too much like a stoic alpha for that.

Hoseok resolved to ignore it for now. They were allowed to keep their secrets.

They worked in silence for a minute more – and then came the sound of the front door opening. It was loud in their quiet space, and Hoseok turned to Yoongi for support of some kind.

Th other didn’t seem worried at all, which helped give Hoseok some peace of mind even as they heard whoever it was walk into the apartment at large.

“Right, that’s the other trainee,” Yoongi said. “Namjoon – I think he’s the same age as you.”

Even as the scent of another alpha reached them from the front room, Hoseok tensed up. Having two alphas in the same enclosed space was always a dangerous game to play. The management hadn’t said whether the two other trainees actually got on – they’d not said much about them at all, really – but Hoseok hadn’t even considered that he was going to have to deal with something like that for the next few years.

“Hey, I got you that cake that you like –“ The man who wandered into the room had his head down, looking at whatever it was in his hands. Presumably the cake that he was talking to Yoongi about.

Yoongi proceeded to clear his throat, which seemed to grab Namjoon’s attention. Namjoon looked up. Hoseok could tell the exact moment at which he noticed that Hoseok was there – the full on jump into the air that he did rather gave it away.

“This is our new roommate, Joon,” Yoongi said. He sounded… amused?

Hoseok stared at both of them. The amount of affection that had been in Yoongi’s voice just then was a massive contrast to the almost-irritated way he’d been talking to Hoseok so far. And he certainly hadn’t expected for Yoongi to be so accommodating to living with another alpha.

“Right! Our newest roommate!” Namjoon’s face lit up.

Hoseok smiled. “Hi,” he said, shifting his weight. He was all too aware that he was in the territory of two alphas right now – sort of uninvited – and he didn’t want to risk feeling too comfortable, no matter how nice they seemed.

Namjoon came towards him quickly – and Hoseok took a step back.

“It’s so good to meet you,” Namjoon said, excitedly, not seeming to notice at all.

“You too,” Hoseok said, simultaneously taken aback and hyped up. Namjoon seemed to have a bit more energy than Yoongi did, and he could already feel his own energy levels rising to match it. “You guys have been here for a while, huh?”

Namjoon laughed. “Yeah, you could say that. We’ve been doing our best to make things not look like that, but when you’re used to only being here for nights, there never seemed to be much point.”

Hoseok looked around – he could believe that they didn’t spend much time here.

In that time, Namjoon walked back over to where Yoongi was. They stood comfortably together, like they were very, very close. It was nice to see – and only made Hoseok feel left out a little, again.

“So where’s the other bedroom?”

The speed at which the other two turned to look at him was almost scary. Hoseok felt like he was under scrutiny, like a particularly silly puppy that needed scolding.

Then they shared a delicate look. Hoseok had already felt out of place, and that only made it more apparent. If Hoseok had thought that he was missing out on something already, it got even worse now.

“There isn’t a separate bedroom,” Namjoon said carefully.

Hoseok blinked. “But they told me there would be bunkbeds…” he said, beginning to feel like things were going rather unlike he had wanted this day to.

The fact that Namjoon looked shocked by this wasn’t a good sign. “Did you hear about this?” Namjoon asked, turning to Yoongi.

Yoongi shrugged. Hoseok got the feeling that Yoongi wasn’t that great at showing what he was feeling.

Namjoon turned back to him. “I don’t know when they’re doing that,” he said. It sounded apologetic. “We – uh –“ He turned to Yoongi, and Hoseok found himself confused again.

“What Namjoon is trying to say is that we’ll be sharing this bed,” Yoongi said blankly.

Hoseok’s brain whited out.

“That – I –“ Hoseok did his best to make sense of what he was hearing. “You guys are…?”

Hoseok didn’t even know what the question he was trying to ask was, but Namjoon seemed to think he knew, at least. He slumped, sighing – and Yoongi put an arm around his shoulders in comfort. Closer than any two alphas usually would.

“Yes – we’re together.”

Hoseok gaped. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting –

“I know it’s shocking, but you can’t do anything about it,” Yoongi snapped. Hoseok realised what he must have looked like – like he was judging them, thought that it was wrong – but then Yoongi continued. “We don’t want to hear any of it.” He sounded ready to fight Hoseok completely.

“I – that’s fine,” Hoseok said, doing his best to show how much it didn’t bother him. “I just – won’t that be awfully… cosy? To share a bed like that?”

The snort that Yoongi let out made Hoseok remember that most of the time couples shared beds anyway.

Namjoon didn’t seem to be as offended as Yoongi was. If anything, he seemed amused by it all – Hoseok saw him press a quick kiss onto Yoongi’s hair, light and delicate. Yoongi didn’t seem to react to it – but, since Hoseok was looking closely, he saw the light blush feathering over his cheekbones.

Well, sharing a room with an unusual couple wasn’t what Hoseok had been expecting out of his time here, but he wasn’t opposed to it.

Hoseok didn’t see much of the two of them as a couple for a while after. He was too busy worrying about all the work that he was meant to be doing for the studio, and when he was home, he mostly crashed into the bed. Doing dance all day every day was tiring, as it turned out, and it made him need all the sleep he could get.

In fact, it had him almost forgetting about that particular detail. In the face of so much work, and so much worry, and the general passage of time, the details of meeting his roommates became blurred. It even got to the point where he wasn’t entirely sure whether it had actually happened or not.

The next week, when Hoseok found the two of them making out furiously in the studio at work, he knew he couldn’t possibly have imagined it.

**

“Oh my god, do you two mind?”

Sounds of surprise.

“Sorry Hoseok.”

“Yeah, sorry Hobi.”

“Would it kill you two to keep your clothes on for five minutes? We have to share a bedroom, you know.”